Sunday, November 20, 2005

The Simple versus the Great Life

The simple life is achieving the higher standard of living. The great life, however, is achieving the higher standard of thinking. In a religious country, like in the Philippines, neither the simple life nor the great life is possible to achieve. Filipinos would rather be escaping daily away from human responsibility by trying, instead, to achieve the higher standard of praying. Poch Suzara

So What?

Hundreds of thousands of people everyday die of starvation in India. Tens of thousands of people everyday are murdered in the Congo. Millions of Filipino children are malnourished trying to survive on street diet in the Philippines. What is our attitude towards such horrors? Silently, we say: So what? When a princess die in a car accident, however, about 2 billion people of the earth’s 6 billion people falls prostrate with grief, tears and sadness. Indeed, so what? Famous dead personalities are often revived. Never mind those who have no celebrity status trying so hard to survive. Poch Suzara

For This Christmas

For this Christmas I urge my friends and relatives to please give not your kids and grandkids toys that are destructive. Instead, give them ideas that are constructive. In this way, we will grow up celebrating yearly the birth of religious sanity, and celebrate no more the birth anniversary of a Jewish baby some two years thousand ago in Israel that today is not even Christian country. Poch Suzara

Most Married Men

Most married men are not faithful husbands. They cheat on their wives. And to think that such unfaithful husbands are more afraid of their wives than they are afraid of God. After all, God is always there to forgive them of the sins against divinity and to forgive them of their crimes against the family. The Sick Man of Asia, indeed, in thought and in action as victims of a stupid system of education.
For my part, I never was unfaithful to my wife. Instead of murder, however, I chose the lesser evil. With much pain and regret, I was constrained to divorce her legally. Poch Suzara

My Stupid Teachers

A stupid man is a happy man specially as he believes that everyone else is just as stupid as he is. And to think that a stupid man is happy not finding the light at the end of the tunnel. He does not even bother to look for the tunnel. I should know. Quite a few of such stupid men were my teachers in grade school and high school at De La Salle University. They conspired together to expel out me out as I was a rare student always questioning what we were always being threatened to believe. For Christ's sake, this was some 60 years ago. It is still a great part of the system of education in the more than 1,000 Catholic schools, colleges, and Universities owned by the Catholic church today in the Philippines. Poch Suzara

Oldest Profession

The world's oldest profession is not prostitution; it is creation. Creation has been ongoing even long before the days of prostitution of the Immaculate Misconception. Poch Suzara

The Scientific Method of Thinking

Perhaps, if we look closer at its aim, we might grasp what the scientific method of thinking is all about. To begin with, science does not open the door to perpetual sagacity; on the contrary, it sets a limit to everlasting stupidity. In fact, the whole purpose of science is to make sure that we are not misled into thinking that we know something when, in truth, we really know nothing. There is nothing permanent as everything is temporary in science. Nothing is sacred in science, especially as it is about the never-ending search of the truth. Poch Suzara

Free from Ignorance

I pursue knowledge. The search of the truth is the most precious of activities. I cannot pretend to be free from ignorance. I am not gifted with talents nor with abilities. I just enjoy taking full advantage of my free will to question everything. It is the only way I can be genuinely spiritual, if not be truly intellectual. In the meantime, I am not interested with life after death. I do not care to go to heaven to be with God. I do not waste time worrying that I might end up in hell with the devil. I am only interested with this life in this world. Our world. The next life, if any, matters not a pin to me. Poch Suzara

Monday, November 14, 2005

Open Letter to Kofi Annan

SECOND REQUEST PLEASE

Nov. 6, 2004
Kofi Annan
Secretary General
UNITED NATIONS
New York

OPEN LETTER TO KOFI ANNAN

Dear Mr. Kofi Annan,

I am most proud of you serving as the Secretary General of the United Nations that just celebrated its 59th year of existence. Congratulations. I sincerely thank you for your leadership and moral integrity through what continues to be a critical era of world history.

Indeed, the United Nations was founded as an instrument of peace, human rights and development. I would like to suggest that in order for the UN to attain its goals: - a world without poverty, without industry for hostility, without crimes against humanity - it should be able to reach out over and above governments and be rightfully supported by ordinary men and women from all over the world. I am suggesting that we all become citizens of the United Nations. The much needed resources for the U.N. can be willingly provided by the citizens of the U.N. I believe the General Assembly can empower you as Secretary General to appoint a small committee to explore this possibility.

In HAS MAN A FUTURE, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Law is a farce unless there is power to enforce it, and power to enforce international law against great states is impossible while each possess vast armaments. Great states have, at present, the privilege of killing members of other States whenever they feel so disposed, though this liberty is disguised as the heroic privilege of dying in defense of what is right and just. Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.”

Imagine 2 billion people supporting the UN with $10.00 each as annual citizenship dues of the UN. This would amount to $20 billion dollars a year. Enough I think for the UN to maintain not only its own Peace-Keeping Force, but to gradually expand to the point where the United Nations is in total control of all major weapons of war. It is hard to see any other way by which the human race can survive the weapons of mass extermination owned by an ever increasing number of countries. In the near future add another 2 billion people to make it 4 billion UN citizens, - $40 billions dollars a year. The UN would become the respected and effective enforcer of international law and an irresistible global force for peace and goodwill to all men and women and children. The protection of our natural world from unsustainable population growth could also be addressed. It is dramatic but true - The future of humankind is at stake.

We are in a new era of global community. We need a United Nations which has both the involvement and support of peoples throughout the world. We can make it come true if we, the ordinary men and women in our respective countries, can be made a legal part of the UN’s ultimate goals. We have sufficient resources to provide our fellow citizens with adequate food, education and health care. We have the will to treat our brothers and sisters with dignity and self-respect. But this cannot be accomplished by, or entrusted to, a small group of nations representing the interests and prejudices of a small percentage of the human race; it can only be achieved by the super citizens of the United Nations functioning as a world government.

Yours Faithfully,

POCH SUZARA
BERTRAND RUSSELL SOCIETY, PHIL.
8 Zipper Street, SLV,
Makati City, Philippines

Friday, November 11, 2005

What If

What if, after death, it will turn out that there is a God after all to judge my terrible sins, what will I say in my defense? “Oh God, please forgive me for having totally wasted the first 18 years of my precious life as a devout Catholic in the Philippines.” Poch Suzara

The Philippines

The most unique country in Asia today is the Republic of the Philippines. Its citizens are always enjoying the vows often made by its duly elected government officials. The problem, however, is that while the country is getting rich with vows, the government officials are getting richer by not delivering such vows. Poch Suzara

The Religious Inventors

The religious saviors who promised to save souls from going to hell are the same religious saviors who invented souls, invented hell, and invented the “wrath of God.” And to think that these are the same religious clowns who are the owners not only of schools, colleges, universities, and hospitals, but are also owners of churches and cathedrals, not to mention other commercial entities legally operating under Philippine laws. Poch Suzara

Live Jesus in our Hearts, forever

All my school-mates and class-mates must have uttered together more than a billion times these words: “St. John Baptist De La Salle, pray for us sinners, and live Jesus in our hearts, forever.” Indeed, before class, after class, before recess, after recess, at the end of class of each day, we repeated those words with much solemnity. Look at my classmates and schoolmates today: - they have neither love for each other, nor love for country, nor even love for mankind; except love only for Jesus. In the meantime, it is truly sad to see college educated men in the Philippines still stuck with infantile desires to win divine reward and avoid divine punishment. Indeed, the Sick Man of Asia in thought and in action. Poch Suzara

Public Libraries

If we Filipinos were learned as a people and educated as a nation, how come churches and cathedrals have been established throughout the Philippines than public libraries? True, we do have a national library. It is the most unique in the world. Books there are not being read by readers, researchers, and other scholars, but are only eaten and digested by termites. Poch Suzara

Civilized Nations

Civilized nations produce children as needed and loved for the growth of country and development of humanity. In the Philippines, however, we beget children for the growth of poverty and development of social insanity for the glory of divinity. Poch Suzara

Terrorism

Terrorism does not only come from terrorists. The most deadly kind comes from teachers in school teaching such horrors like: “Natural life came by God’s breath; eternal life comes by Christ’s death.” See Philippine Star, Nov. 4, 2005. In the meantime, God must be doing a lot of heavy breathing these days. Three (3) babies are born every single minute of the day or about 1,500,000 babies arrive in the Philippines every year. By the year 2010 our population will reach 100,000,000 Filipinos all to be terrorized at home, in school, and in church to believe in the eternal life that comes from Christ’s death. Poch Suzara

Self-deception

We humans have a demonstrated capacity for self-deception specially when our emotions are stirred, and there is nothing more stirring than the belief that there is better world to come after death in kingdom of God.
In the meantime, we deliberately ignore this simple truth: a man dies not partially, but entirely and irrevocably. Nothing is more obvious to him who is not delirious or superstitious. The human body, after death, is but a mass of meat, incapable of producing any lively movements the union of which constitutes life. We no longer see circulation, respiration, digestion, communication, and indeed, cogitation. It is, however, claimed that the soul has separated itself from the body. And yet, it was the good-for-nothing theologians who were the inventors of such souls. But to say that this soul, which is unknown, is the principle of life, is saying nothing except to admit what is unknowable. Meanwhile, nothing is more simple than to believe that the dead man lives no more. There is nothing more absurd than to believe that the dead man is still walking somehow or running somewhere. Poch Suzara

Giordano Bruno

For wanting to steer humanity toward reason, rather than to have our thoughts determined for us by church authority, Bruno, the 16th century Catholic monk, was burned alive at the stake by the Catholic Inquisition.
Bruno wrote: “Time gives all and takes all away; everything changes, but nothing perishes.”
For my part, It is men like Bruno who inspired me to make changes in my life by escaping away from the horrors of Catholicism into the beauty and sanity of atheism. Poch Suzara

Moses - God's Favorite General

Moses was one of the greatest army generals of God, but he was more of a clown than he was a military leader. He could split the Red Sea in less than 40 hours, but to find for his people the way out of the desert, it took Moses some 40 years. But then again, let us not forget that Moses was also one of the greatest writers of the bible. He wrote the first five books of the Old Testament. As an inspired author of God, however, Moses was even able to literally describe his own death and how the Lord buried him. See last chapter of Deuteronomy. Poch Suzara

America

During the 20th century America got to be so rich and powerful thanks to the threats of Communism. In this 21st century, America will become richer and more powerful because of the threats of Terrorism.
Such is America. The land of the free. The home of the brave. A paradise for the Arms manufacturers, dealers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, traders, and exporters. The very same Americans who will inherit the earth while the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians are at war killing each other off the planet earth. Poch Suzara