Silly Theology

As a young boy, I was told that theology is the study of God. Today as an old man, I am aware that no new knowledge has been discovered about God. His experiences in life and what lessons he has learned from such experiences. God seemed to have just grown older, not wiser. He has amassed a great deal of experience, but it remains a mass of experience. The pattern of his thought and attitude and action remains the same. In fact, what God was last century, he is exactly the same God in this century. I wish theology could even discover if God in fact is a He, a She, or just an It.
In the ultimate analysis, however, at this point and time in man's history on this earth, theology should have already discovered the secret of life and death as something knowable and not something unknowable. Poch Suzara

Biblical Tree

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Matt. 7:18. The question is: where exactly is that corrupt tree found on this planet today, and who created its evil fruit? Poch Suzara

Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell said: “Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them.”
It would have been nearer the truth had Jerry Falwell, instead, declared: “Creation, not prostitution, is the world’s oldest profession.” Poch Suzara

Love from Jesus

Jesus admonished: "Love, love one another." Jesus, however, failed to show his followers how prcisely to love one another. Thus, even among bible characters themselves, from the Old to the New Testament, nobody knew how to love anybody. In fact, Jesus himself knew not how to love others. Otherwise, if He did, no one in His community of love would have had the gall to get Him crucified dead on a stick. Poch Suzara

Mark Twain's Monkeys

Mark Twain wrote: "I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's."
Please Mark, let us not insult the monkeys. Monkeys do not achieve a reputation for mediocrity. Monkeys do not go to school. They are not made stupid by acquiring a college education. Take a look at the men and women with college education in charge of the stupid mess otherwise known as the United Nations today. Poch Suzara

Superstitious

We are all superstitious. Consider how we all believe that there is such a thing as security. None exist in the ultimate reality. After all, in nature, in every birth follows life and then only death and decay. Even security in the hereafter is based on a lot of religious hogwash. Consider the fact there isn’t even a herebefore. How could there be a hereafter? Poch Suzara

No One is Perfect

No one is perfect. We atheists, however, have no sense of sin, nor sense of guilt, nor sense of shame with the thought that we are not perfect. In fact, we atheists are never bothered by the fact that no one is perfect. Poch Suzara

War

War is nature’s spasmodic effort to change the status quo, but we have none of that. As soon as one war is over, we lay the foundation of another. Blinded and obsessed by either ecclesiasticism or commercialism, - old boundaries, old sovereignties, old systems, and old ways are set up, when the purpose of war is to destroy them. Do you not see then the part self-righteous wrongdoers play in war? Indeed, the righteous are always ready and willing to kill those who are more righteous.
We atheists have found intellectual as well as moral equivalent for war, something that can bring about change without bloodshed, without violence – brains instead of battles, books instead of bullets, and mature thinking instead childish believing. Poch Suzara

The Priesthood Industry

The priesthood industry fears atheism, not because it is inimical to human welfare, but because it is inimical to its own welfare. The priesthood industry wants and needs their mythical God because in him they live and move and have their cake and eat it too. The priesthood industry sees to it that the world remains full of suffering, tragedy, disease, disaster, pain and misery. Thus, the priesthood industry has become an institution not for human welfare, but only for the care and maintenance of God. For my part, I cannot imagine a powerful supernatural being behaving not only like a spoiled brat, but also proving to be such a cold-blooded perfection but quite engrossed if not lost in self-admiration. Poch Suzara

Sacred Books

The bible of the Christians, the Quran of the Muslims, and the Talmud of the Jews are all exactly alike and easy to understand. They are sacred books about how to hate everything that might enhance the achievement of the good life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Hatred of life, hatred of learning new and fresh ideas, hatred of curiosity, and indeed hatred of women and the hatred of human intelligence. Such sacred books divert men’s outlook toward the extra-terrestrial heavens, by loosing sight of the terrestrial life on this earth. Hope of eternal salvation or aspiration to the hereafter promotes a sense futility in the present. If the prospect of getting taken up to God’s kingdom generates comfort, it is the mindless comfort of a child picked up from his crib. Poch Suzara

Jesus as Savior

Jesus came to save the world. That was more than 2,000 years ago. The world, however, is not any safer, any saner or any more humane than it was during the time of Jesus, nor is man appreciably any more sensible or responsible. There is little dispute that Jesus as a “savior” has proved to be a dismal failure. His plan of salvation was a failure; it did not work out as Jesus intended. A great teacher is needed now almost as much as 2,000 years ago. If the world, however, is gradually improving, it is because of science, not due to ancient superstitions. Jesus may have resurrected his dead body from the grave back to life, but he failed to resurrect the dead minds of men and the dead hearts of women of his community. Jesus failed to provide the knowledge so much needed by man to enable him to shape his course through life. No one knows how to live intelligently, how best to meet life’s situation, what action is best suited to the occasion. Jesus did not tell us what to do. His sayings are interpreted in many conflicting ways. He failed to predict the needs of the future. He said little of international strife. He offered no program for arbitration of global disputes, no substitute for war between nations, no policy of war prevention. Jesus did not explain what entailed a happy relations between man and wife, nor between employer and employee, nor how to educate children, nor how to preserve health, nor how to make a living, nor how to prevent war, or prevent poverty and suffering. Jesus gave little information, and his spiritual advice was not clearly enough expressed to enable man to apply it to modern times. Jesus neglected to show his followers how to live in search of the truth. His knowledge of the world was less than the knowledge of a high school dropout today who reads with much gusto the basic writings of Bertrand Russell. Poch Suzara

Imagine a God

Imagine a God who can create a trillion stars to comprise the Cosmos. He could create a home called hell for the devil and his fallen angels. He could even create a purgatory as a stopover for silly souls on the way to heaven. God could even split the Read Sea for his Chosen Jewish people to march across. God could even create churches and cathedrals throughout the Philippines. But God would not and could not create houses for my poor brothers and sisters living under subhuman conditions in the Philippines. And to think that these are the same poor and homeless Filipinos who hate each other and who hate their country down here but have so much love God and respect for his saints up there. Poch Suzara

The Supernatural Being

The supernatural being traditionally called God has been vanishing by the explosion of scientific knowledge around the wrld during the last 500 years. Not, however, in the Philippines. We may have a supernatural being no more, but we certainly had human beings like Jaime Cardinal Sin, who was even more supernatural than he was the Archbishop of Manila then. Even the president of our Republic would kneel down to him as a confirmation that our democracy is nothing compared to the power of theocracy in this God-forsaken country. Poch Suzara

As Atheists

Our task as atheists is to help others deepen their courage to embrace the reality of common humanity by ignoring the fantasy behind childish divinity. There is no such thing as the perfection of creation. After all, creation is still expanding and human life is still evolving. Evolving into what? Nobody knows. We hope, however, with more intelligence as intelligence will lead us not into temptation as we should already know where were are going. Poch Suzara

The Job of a Creator

In his book, A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking surmised: “ So long as the universe has a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end: it would simply be. What place, then, for a creator?”

I ask: Which creator? The one who is always omni-absent everywhere; or, the creator who is never omni-present anywhere. Poch Suzara

I am Told

Who am I to question God? My reply: Who are you not to question God whose existence has been concocted by superstitious writers of the bible? Thousands of years ago, they knew much less about our world than our own grandparents knew about our world a hundred years ago? As a matter of fact, our grandchildren’s children will know more, a great deal more about the nature of our world in the centuries to come? Such knowledgeable people in the future should be the ones writing the bible for God, if there is any. Poch Suzara

When we were babies

None of us were believers when we were babies. We were all sane, pure, and atheistic. None of us lived in fear of shame or suffered from guilt. As babies, none of us believed in the cult of the Supreme Being. Until of course the religious morons started to frighten us to have faith in God. Today as grown-ups, in God’s name and for his glory in heaven, whether we are Christians or Jews or Muslims - we are even willing to destroy our home planet earth just to prove how right is our own religion and how wrong the other's religion. Indeed, religion encourages cruelty, stupidity, and insanity. If we were all atheists as we were all born atheists – we can all learn to live in peace on earth and goodwill to all men. Poch Suzara

Bible Lessons

There is nothing in the bible that says Jesus was a Catholic or a Lutheran or a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Mormon, etc. In fact, Jesus was a devout Jew. But then again, if Jesus was the Son of God and Jesus was a Jew, then God must be a Jew too. Here, however, is something else to think about. Jesus died for our sins. Jesus must be proud of Filipinos. After all, we Filipinos are the most corrupt sinners in all of Asia. We never stop to commit sins and crimes and thus we also never stop to add more meaning to the Jesus martyrdom. As far as latest chosen people of God are concerned the Filipinos are in. The Jews are out. Poch Suzara

Jesus Said

“Man does not live by bread alone.” In the Philippines, however, we hardly have bread. More than 70 per cent of our population live on $2.00 a day. The rest live on sin and crime, indeed, by greed, graft, and corruption. In order, however, to remedy the ills of our sick economy, we export Filipino workers abroad. More than 15,000,000 of our PEOPLE have already found a better standard of living and thinking having already migrated to 169 countries around the world. If we could only export sick teachers and professors, sick government officials, sick theologians, sick evangelists, and sick criminals not yet sentenced to prison in this faith-soaked republic. Aside from bread, let us begin to entertain other values that make for the good life under a growing and developing civilization right here in our own beloved country. Poch Suzara

Luke 19:27

In Luke 19:27, Jesus said: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.” Indeed, If Jesus were alive today he would be an American and could be as great as president George W. Bush of the United States of America. Poch Suzara