I Do Not Fear Death

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain

               

This month April 26,  2017, I will be 80 years old. I too am looking forward to my own death coming soon. Indeed, I too do not fear 
death and just like Mark Twain, I too am looking forward to that same experience  having been dead myself for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

In the meantime, I entirely agree with Robert G. Ingersoll. He wrote: "Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others also happy."

                    

In the meantime, What is the scariest thing about coming out of the closet to be an atheist? Waiting for the lightning bolt to strike you dead. But it's also the best thing about coming out to be an atheist - there is never a lightning bolt to strike you dead!

                                                         Poch Suzara

                                    

Let's Keep the Business of Religion Profitable as Always

To master temptation, let Christ master you.

               

                                       Phil Star, 3/29,2017

For my part, as an unbeliever of the faith, I

say this is all so childish, if not all so sickening.

To master temptation we must learn to laugh at

the devil out of existence. The same old devil always cahoots with Christ to keep the business of religion as profitable as ever.

In the meantime in our sick society of poverty, misery, greed, graft, crime and corruption, there is always something to be joyful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am no longer a Catholic.

                                                     Poch Suzara

Afraid of Going to Hell

                                     

It is so sickening to hear people admit that God is a God of mercy or a God of forgiveness who nevertheless had to create hell for the atheists to go to be eternally damned and punished after death. As if they do know where exactly hell is located; or, where hell is situated. As if they also know what mode of transportation to embark on to go to hell. In the meantime, how come my dead friends, dead associates, and dead relatives already  dead are still dead and peacefully buried in the cemetery?--- Poch Suzara

"In prayer God hears more  than your words - He listens to your heart."

                                           Phil Star, March 15, 2017

WOW! What a shallow-minded God! He does give a hoot why you are such a heartless product of your frightened parents at home. 
He does not give  hoot why are you such a heartless product of your frightened teachers 
in school. He does not give a hoot why you are such a heartless product of frightened priests 
 in church. He does not give a hoot why you

are such a heartless product of a sick society made sick with values and sick beliefs.

For my part, as a man of thought, as I am an atheist, I refuse to believe in the existence of such a shallow-minded God; and if there is a God who will damn me to hell after death for being an atheist, that's his problem, not mine.

Charlie Chaplin said it: "That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves."

For my part, I say: "If we live in a troubled world, it is because of our sick prayers under our sick religious beliefs and values as inspired by the belief in the existence of a shallow-minded God."

                                                  Poch Suzara

The Power of Thought versus the Fear of Thought

There is nothing more despicable in this world than the fear of thought. However, there is also nothing more precious and delightful in this world than the power of thought. - Poch Suzara Google, Facebook, Atheist.Republic

Bertrand Russell - my Kind of God

As a little boy in school, my priest-confessor often told me that I am not a perfect being. I should therefore always kneel down and ask God for the forgiveness of my defects. Indeed, that eventual obliteration will be a better way to achieve my salvation than my need to seek reconstruction.

Bertrand Russell arrived into my life after I was lucky enough to have been expelled out of La Salle high school. He said: “No one is perfect and we should never be bothered by the fact that we are not perfect.”

Russell also taught me to question everything including his own ideas and values. He wrote: "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly." These words have not ceased to stir my mind and heart to this day. If there were ever a thinker I have learned to love and respect – such a thinker was Bertrand Russell. Indeed, Russell saved not my silly soul; he saved, instead, something far more precious - my intelligent and lively mind.

Much to my joys and pleasures and happiness in life, it was Bertrand Russell who introduced me to love and respect as well our own great thinker - Jose Rizal. None of my teachers in school taught me to see just how great a Filipino humanist/scientists was our own Dr. Jose Rizal.

Oh, Bertrand Russell, whenever you are - thank you for teaching me intellectual courage to face the horrors in nature. And thank you as well for making me realize that

our world is infested with religious insanity as always in cahoots with political stupidity; and that life is not worth living unless we struggle to wage war to defeat such horrors - horrors that's keeping our world misguided spiritually, misdirected morally, and sick economically. - Poch Suzara

                                                            

Julia Carreon

Julia Lagoc

To

Poch Suzara

Today at 12:07

Poch, saludo ako! I've just read your 2003 (35). Wow! It will take me weeks, even months to read all the blogs. So, forget about editing fees, forget about what I wrote the other day, pasted below. Gosh, I wonder when I'll get through, reading all those thought-provoking thoughts.

I got crazy with deadlines. After my swan song of a column last December, I was resolute to come up with a novel. Up to now, the title is still afloat in my mind.

Talking of floating, hey, don't get too serious. I fly in the wings of songs many times.

Cheers!

Julia

Adolf Hitler was No Atheist, In fact, He was a Devout Catholic

 
"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

— Adolf Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941

"I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."

— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 46

"I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Almighty Creator. By fighting the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work."

— Adolf Hitler, ibid. p. 65

"This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief."

— Adolf Hitler, ibid. p 152

"Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it."

— Adolf Hitler, ibid. Vol. 2 Chapter 1

"The National Government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."

— Adolf Hitler, Berlin, 1933, first radio address after coming to power.

"The national Government sees in both Christian denominations the most important factor for the maintenance of our society."

— Adolf Hitler, speech at the Reichstag, March 1933

"The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines, and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today."

— Adolf Hitler, June 26 1934, to Catholic bishops

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ... We need believing people."

— Adolf Hitler, April 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933
"The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy ... proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism..."

— Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, 1929

"I am personally convinced of the great power and deep significance of Christianity, and I won't allow any other religion to be promoted."

— Adolf Hitler

"Today Christians ... stand at the head of [this country]... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... (few) years."

— Adolf Hitler, quoted in: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations; we have stamped it out."

— Adolf Hitler, speech, October 24, 1933

Here's a list of banned books in Germany, 1932-1939
"As for the Jews, I am just carrying on with the same policy which the Catholic Church has adopted for fifteen hundred years, when it has regarded the Jews as dangerous and pushed them into ghettos etc., because it knew what the Jews were like. I don't put race above religion, but I do see the danger in the representatives of this race for Church and State, and perhaps I am doing Christianity a great service."

— Adolf Hitler, 1936, to Bishop Berning and Msg. Steinman, representatives of Pope Pius XI

"The work that Christ started but could not finish, I — Adolf Hitler — will conclude."

— Adolf Hitler, December 1926.

Here, here, and here are more of his quotes on religion, God, and Christianity. Here are Nazi photos showing their alliance with Christianity.

Note that Adolf Hitler was never excommunicated or in any other way officially censured by the Catholic Church. The only high-ranking Catholic Nazi to be excommunicated was Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels — because he married a divorced Protestant woman.
"The party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, without, however, allying itself to any particular denomination."

Article 24, Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party

"I swear by God this sacred oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to Adolf Hitler, the Leader of the German empire, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that I shall at all times be prepared, as a brave soldier, to give my life for this oath."

German WWII Military Oath

"Our religion is Christ, our politics Fatherland!"
— slogan of Hans Schemm, Bavarian Minister of Education and Culture during the Third Reich

What Makes a Great Man

“A great chessplayer, a great golfer, a great boxer, a great basketball star, a great swimmer, etc. are not great men, for they leave the world as they found it.” No, the great man is one who had the power and the courage to put more truths into this world where the State and the Church together have put only the horror of lies and deceptions. --- Poch Suzara

The Difference Between a Great Man and a Little Man

If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.  - - - Robert H. Schuller

If you believe what they threatened you in school to believe, 

you will die never knowing how possible it was for you to have  become a great man - one who has the power, and the courage to put thoughtful ideas into this world where sick religion has only put thoughtless beliefs! - - - Poch Suzara

Is God Really that Silly?

"The bible is a mirror that lets us see ourselves as God see us."
Phil Star, Feb. 18, 2017

My dear readers, do you people really believe that God is 
such a silly God who loves to play silly games with how people  should see themselves  as they read the sick bible? - Poch Suzara

Is There Hope for the Philippines

Is there hope for the Filipinos in the Philippines to ever grow decent as a people; and, to ever develop decent as a nation?

Yes, there is! As soon as the State takes over to be in full control of schools, colleges, and Universities. Indeed, the Church should have no business in anyway whatsoever involved with the system of education in any country.  After all, nothing distorts the minds and nothing contorts the hearts of children in school taught, nay, frightened to believe in a lot of sick religious dogma, pigma, and hogma!- Poch Suzara

Health and Wealth and the Search of the Truth

We squander our health, in search of wealth. We toil, we sweat, and we save. Then we squander our wealth in search of health; only 

to find the grave. - - - Anonymous

As with me, however, I have been most fortunate. I squandered both my health and wealth in search of the truth. It is a never-ending adventure; and in the process I managed, somehow, to discover the lies and deceptions that's keeping us spiritually sick as a people; and, keeping us morally insane as a nation. In sharing, however, my discoveries with others - I never intended to be vicious or malicious; in fact, I thought, I should be ethically meritorious, if not philosophically courageous. In the meantime, the search of 

the truth is the most delightful of adventures. Especially as it means total submission of the power of reason to the mutilation of silly or childish faith. Rightly or wrongly it's the best way to enjoy lively analysis as we should always reject the uselessness of deadly paralysis! - - - Poch Suzara

Religion a "Dying Dinosaur" - a Great Letter

Religion a ‘dying dinosaur’

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 12:12 AM February 09, 2017

This is in reference to the commentary titled “Will we ever attain economic take-off?” by Meliton Juanico (Opinion, 1/25/17).

The Catholic Church and the religious values it espouses are the elephants in the room that Juanico failed to address. The conditions necessary to attain economic take-off are not being attained because the values being taught are contrary to the “modern values” he is talking about.

We have nothing comparable to the Confucian (secular) ethic that he says the “tiger” economies of Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong have. Our historical preoccupation with religion and the Church’s influence on our values have put us at a disadvantage. Obedience, subordination, subservience—hallmarks of oppressive organized religion—are the very antithesis of modern economic success.

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It is no accident that we make good retail clerks, caregivers, domestic helpers, call center employees. These are good and needed workers, but they won’t create a Samsung, a Tesla or a PayPal if we are constantly being bombarded with sinning, fear-mongering, fire and brimstone. I have never understood to this day why “may takot sa Dios” (fear of the Lord) is a virtue. A child reared in this stifling environment becomes risk-averse, timid and ambiguous.

Further, absolutism and fixed religious ideology are a bane to creativity. Self-reliance and resourcefulness continue to erode as we constantly delude ourselves into “Hail Marying” through economic downturn and poverty. You would think that after 500 years of living, breathing and eating religion the way we do, it should have already brought us unprecedented wealth and First World status.

We can’t even claim the high moral stature of the most atheistic countries in the world (read: Scandinavia). My friend Joe says: But we go to heaven, and they go to hell. This is what 2,000 years of relentless conditioning have done to Joe’s brain. It’s irrational, bordering on mental illness.

Juanico talks about “value reorientation,” using readers of the 1950s to inculcate modern values. I don’t know where he is coming from, but my grandchildren won’t read any fairy tales anymore. It’s iPad or nothing. They are assertive and smarter than some of my teachers in the 1960s.

Good grief, Juanico, “Good Manners and Right Conduct?” What is good and what is right today? (You can say “bad” today and mean “good.”) Religion is a dying dinosaur, but like prehistoric creatures, it will evolve and continue for many more years.

The pulpit should be a source of education for the masses, and not for religious bullying. Stop all nonsense about medieval mythology. Talk about what it means to be a citizen of the world instead. Speak about Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin and Bill Gates. Let the faithful know what happened during the Inquisition, the significance of the Enlightenment and tell why Evolution is fact. If the Padre cannot handle these stuff, he should humble himself and outsource the homily.

At the current state of affairs in this country, will we attain economic take-off? Yes, “until the cows come home,” if we don’t reinvent ourselves.

EDWIN DE LEON, edwingdeleon@gmail.com

COMMENT:

Indeed, we can only build a better society for ourselves by throwing all of sick religious beliefs and insane religious values out the window. They do nothing for us except to keep us spiritually sick as a people and culturally insane as a nation.

It is time to take a serious look at the evils behind Christianity:  It is all about praying daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly for the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the end, it is all about the same old sick story - the achievement of nothing as a people; and the accomplishment of nothing as a nation. And to think that all of the schools, colleges, and universities established by the Catholic church in the Philippines have been mostly about learning how to pray for the sake of gaining eternal salvation after death with Jesus in heaven! In the meantime, it is truly sickening: everybody wants to go to heaven; but nobody wants to die! Cheers! Poch Suzara, Father of Atheism in the Philippines

                                                                                         

The Human Capacity for human Stupidity

For my part, I say, the greatest tragedy of the human race is in its capacity to still believe in the silly existence of a silly grace who is suppose to be existing as something of a divine grace for the human race. - - - Poch Suzara

Religion like a Disease is always an Evil, Never a Good thing

Religion is not a good thing because the majority of people believe it. It is just like believing that a disease is a good thing because the majority of people have caught it. Or just like the existence of Santa Claus is a good thing because the majority of children believe him to be coming soon bringing toys for them to play with.

As with me, I grew up to be an atheist because even as a little boy at home or in school - I enjoyed playing around

not only with my toys, but mostly with my thoughts! Even

at the risk of being punished for asking questions! Such as

if there is a God who created me why do I need to have parents at home, teachers in school, or need to have priests in church?

                                                        Poch Suzara

An Agnostic was Once as Atheist

"The only thing I know about God is that God is inscrutable. In other words, I don’t know a single thing about God. I’m clueless about what God is. Maybe Jesus, or the other historical figures around which religions had been built, would be more approachable. But God itself, being on a divine level, I think it’s just impermeable to human intelligence. And there is a very famous classical book called The Cloud of Unknowing. There’s always a cloud of unknowing over God. I think that, since God is inaccessible to people, we tend to portray Him in anthropomorphic terms. We think of the best qualities in every person and you try and project it on a giant scale on God. So in effect, God is a man-made concept. We have no clue what God is."

"I do not understand why God can be all love and still inflict this kind of pain on people. This God is an underachiever. He does not do whatever he is supposed to be doing, whatever his sex is. Whether he's an it or a she or a he or whatever. But I'm sure that if you were a god or if I were the God, I would be doing a better job. Therefore, the only conclusion can be that possibly, God does not exist.'" ---Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago