Rizal's Biographer

Rizal’s biographer – Leon M. Guerrero, clearly notes that Rizal returned to the Church of his youth in extremes of self-abasement, frenziedly in childlike fashion, spending the remaining hours of earning indulgences from purgatory by confessing four times, and obsequiously attending to Fr. Balaguer and Villaclara’s wishes. In brief, according to this biographer, Rizal died as a timid coward. According to this official government commissioned biographer, our national hero in the end turned out to be a turncoat.
Four years before his death, however, Rizal in 1882 wrote a letter to Gregorio Aglipay: “In all parts of the world where an honest man tries to achieve reform he is crucified on Golgotha. Christ had nowhere to lay his head, when Pilate governed. It is probable that I will be executed – then they will try to bring along my moral death by covering my memory with slander.” Poch Suzara

Rizal's Revolution of the Mind

Unlike the rest of our national heroes, Rizal was the first and only Filipino revolutionary of the mind. He was the first Filipino who thought human dignity and intellectual integrity should be at the foundation of Filipino culture. And so, due to the successful retraction lies, Filipinos today believe of Rizal not as a great freethinker, not as the revolutionary of the mind, but only as a faithful servant of the priesthood industry. Poch Suzara

Rizal's Retraction

If Rizal had retracted from his attacks against the teachings and practices of the Catholic Church, and if, according to his Catholic biographer Leon M. Guerrero, Rizal had gone to confession four times, heard mass in his death-cell, and received holy communion before he was executed, then Rizal should be branded a traitor to all freedom fighters. He deserves not to be respected or admired as a hero. He should, instead, be worship as a saint. But then again, if Rizal had retracted, why then should the church feel dedicated as its friars feel consecrated to get Rizal’s true character expunged out of the Filipino psyche? The truth of the matter was that the Church did everything possible to counteract Rizal’s honest-to-goodness scientific temper of mind. Indeed, in his Noli and Fili, Rizal exposed the Philippine damaged culture caused by organized superstition otherwise known as Christianity. Thus, the story of his retraction was nothing more than a theological concoction to sanitize, if not to lower the volume of Rizal’s intellectual messages. Poch Suzara

Our Asian Neighbors

The secret why other Asian countries are ahead of the Philippines is no secret at all. Our Asian neighbors have not only adopted, but have also substantiated to the fullest extent possible what Jose Rizal, the nation’s chief hero, was precisely saying to fellow-Filipinos more than a hundred years ago: “Wake up! Embrace science! Utilize the scientific way of thinking! Start to emulate the freethinkers! Knowledge is the heritage of mankind, but only the courageous inherit it! We can only serve our country by telling the naked truth. However bitter it may be!” Poch Suzara

JESUS CHRIST part 2

MORE ON JESUS CHRIST ( part two )

Jesus admitted that: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Yet, at crucial moments, Jesus did not know where he was or even what he was talking about. Here are a few examples:

I and my father are one. - John 10:30

I go unto the Father: for my Father
is greater than I. John 14:28

Jesus said: “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Now what is so noble about turning the other cheek, if one knows that each time he does so, he is piling up greater heavenly rewards, while the one who strikes is earning his rewards in hell?

And Jesus said unto the crucified thief: “Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43. Note: This promise could not have been delivered, unless Christ went to heaven that day, which is contrary to the Christian doctrine that when he was dead he spent the succeeding three days and night in the heart of the earth or (according to the Apostle’s Creed ) in hell.

If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death, Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. John 11:26. Of course how can a dead man see himself already dead? Meanwhile, immortality must be the condition of a dead man who refuses to believe that he is already dead.

Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life. John 12:47.The Jews then and the vegetarians now have yet to figure out what exactly Jesus meant by this taste for cannibalism.

Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matt. 4:17. There be some standing here, which shall not taste death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Matt. 16:28. Jesus was confident that the day of judgment was coming in the first century. However, in this 21st century – in the whole of Asia, only the Filipinos are waiting for the Second Coming of Christ. The rest of Asia are already enjoying not only a higher standard of living, but also a much higher standard of thinking. They can even afford to hire Filipino workers to do household work for them.

Jesus said: “ I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” St. John 8:22. But in the bible Lucifer too was the bringer of light. He is identified with rebel Archangel who brought enlightenment to man. But combining together the light from Jesus and the light from Satan, why is there is so much spiritual darkness, for example, in the Philippines – the only Christian country in Asia?

There were more than six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents, prisoners of war, freedom fighters throughout Europe who were utterly slaughtered not only by poison gas inside crematoriums, or starved to death, shot to death, but eliminated mainly by stupid religion. In his MEIN KAMPF, Adolf Hitler wrote: “I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the works of the Lord.”

Now I am told by my devout Christian friends that Christianity is the religion of love of God and love of neighbor? Well, I ask: What ever happened to that Christianity in the Philippines where we Filipinos love only God up there but we do so by hating one another down here? Poch Suzara

Jesus Christ part 1

JESUS CHRIST ( part one )
Every scholar who has critically investigated Gospel story of the life of Jesus Christ admits now that, whether the narrative contains factual history or not, a mass of myth has surrounded it. Here, however, we are concerned with the record as it stands.

It is probable that Jesus at first expected that God would intervene on his behalf and that he could be acclaimed as the Messiah. When he saw more and more clearly that a revolt against the Roman power was hopeless he declared that the Kingdom of God is not of this world. At this stage of his mission he prepared for his martyrdom. But till the last act of the drama he was persuaded that he was under God’s care and protection, and shortly before the end he announced that his second advent was near at hand.

He spoke “with authority,” a claim which no other teacher could make in the same sense, he raised the dead, he was Lord of the Sabbath, and through him alone could man live forever. Despite all this “authority,” at his death, which was the culmination of his mission to save mankind, he “began to be sorrowful and very heavy,” prayed that his cup of bitterness “might pass from him,” and at the very last exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Was this a matter of a God forsaking himself?

Many “liberal” Protestants today deny that the strong language used by Jesus about the future life was meant to be taken literally. Let them settle that themselves. What matters is the tragic fact that for almost two thousand years his language convinced Christians that an eternal hell is a real place, and that its penalties are incurred as the result of “Unbelief.” No other “spiritual” authority has done so much to drench our world in blood, enough to keep even the US Navy afloat.

Most of the sayings of Jesus regarding violence or non-resistance were intended to apply chiefly to personal, not to global relationship. He said virtually nothing of international conflicts. What he did say showed placid acceptance of the war syndrome:


“And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that
ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” Matt. 2:6-

“But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be
not terrified: for these things must first come to pass;
but the end is not by and by. Then said he unto them,
Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom.” Luke 21: 9-10

These verses have a more direct bearing on war as we now know it than any of his other sayings. They show his belief in the inevitability of war. Apparently, despite his power to perform miracles, he did not feel himself competent to counteract militarism. He offered no program for arbitration of international or border disputes, no ideas to substitute death and destruction between nations, no policy for world peace or path towards global sanity. Mankind continues to live in a welter of organized hatreds and threats of mutual extermination.

Many a good man is a failure from a worldly point of view, but failure is not what one would wish to emulate. Jesus sought to save the world. Surely no one looking at the world today can say that he succeeded. His plan of salvation was a failure; it did not work out as Jesus intended. An ideal teacher is needed now almost as much as two thousand years ago. If the world is gradually improving, as seems probable, it is in spite of the miracles of the past, not because of them.

Indeed, Jesus failed to provide the conditions so much needed by man to enable him to shape his course through the good life inspired by love and guided by knowledge. No one knows how to live correctly, how best to meet each situation, what action is suited to the occasion. Jesus did not tell us what to do. His sayings are interpreted in many different ways. He failed to predict the needs of the future of mankind.

Moreover, Jesus did not explain the healthy relations between husband and wife, nor between employer and employee, nor how to educate children, nor how to preserve health, nor how to earn a living, nor how to prevent internecine hatred, poverty, and suffering. Jesus gave little practical information, and his spiritual advice was not clearly enough expressed to enable man to apply it to modern conditions. Jesus neglected to instruct how to live under common human decency. His knowledge of the world was less than the average mediocre politician of today in the government of Christian countries like the Philippines.

Hypatia

Here’s Hypatia – one of the greatest woman who ever lived - as described by Carl Sagan in his book Cosmos:
“The last scientist who worked in the Library (Alexandria) was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and head of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy – an extraordinary range if accomplishments for any individual in any age. Her name was Hypatia. She was born in Alexandria in 370. At a time when women had few options and were treated as property, Hypatia moved freely and unselfconsciously through traditional male domains. By all accounts she was a great beauty. She had many suitors but rejected all offers of marriage. The Alexandria of Hypatia’s time – by then long under Roman rule – was a city under grave strain. Slavery had sapped classical civilization of its vitality. The growing Christian church was consolidating its power and attempting to eradicate pagan influence and culture. Hypatia stood at the epicenter of these mighty social forces. Cyril, the Archbishop of Alexandria, despised her because of her close friendship with the Roman governor, and because she was a symbol of learning and science, which were largely identified by the early Church with paganism. In great personal danger, she continued to teach and publish, until, in the year 415, on her way to work she was set upon by a fanatical mob of Cyril’s parishioners. They dragged her from her chariot, tore off her clothes, and, armed with abalone shells, flayed her flesh from her bones. Her remains were burned, her works obliterated, her name forgotten. Cyril was made a saint.” Poch Suzara

Giordano Bruno ( 1548 – 1600 )

A Roman Catholic scholar, an astronomer, and philosopher – for suggesting that there exists an infinity of worlds and that many are inhabited – and for reading forbidden books, Bruno was charged with heresy, and even unjustly accused of murder. An ordained priest – he abandoned the Dominican Order in 1578 - challenged papal authority. Bruno was hunted down from land to land, until he turned on his pursuers with fearful invectives - for this he was entrapped at Venice - imprisoned for 6 years in the dungeon of the Inquisition at Rome - then burned alive, his ashes scattered to the winds. For always talking and talking about his ideas and beliefs, Bruno was gagged to prevent him from speaking while being burned alive at the stake. Those personally responsible for Bruno’s death were Pope Clement VIII and his personal theologian Cardinal Robert Bellarmine who was canonized a saint.
Here’s the way biographer Michael White described Bruno’s death in his book: - THE POPE AND THE HERETIC:
On the morning of his execution Giordano Bruno was visited by members of the Brotherhood of Pity of St. John the Beheaded, a group who ministered to any heretic they could in an effort to do what the Inquisition had failed to do: lead the meekly back to the one true faith. From the records of the Brotherhood we learn that, “At the second hour of the night, information came that justice would be done on an impenitent friar in the morning. Hence, at the sixth hour of the night, the Comforters and the chaplain assembled at St. Ursula and went on to the prison in the Tower of Nona, entered the chapel, and offered up the winter prayers. To them was consigned the man, Giordano Bruno, son of Gioan Bruno, an apostate friar of Nola in the kingdom, an impenitent. He was exhorted by our brothers in all love, and two Fathers of the Order of St. Dominic, two of the Order of Jesus, two of the new church and one of St. Jerome were called in. These with all loving zeal and much learning, showed him his error, yet he stood firm throughout and to the end in his accursed obstinacy, setting his brain and mind to a thousand errors and vain-gloryings.
What must Bruno have thought during those final hours? Did he despair, finally? Did he reach the conclusion that he has been wrong all along? Or did he feel vindicated, confident that his thoughts would survive the flames? Did he perhaps wonder if, far away on the alien worlds he imagined, other creatures burned their dreamers too?
At 5.30 a.m. on 19 February, a Thursday and a feast day in Rome, Bruno was led in chains from San. Ursula. He was dressed in a white, ankle-length robe illuminated with the cross of St. Andrew and dotted with painted devils holding their long, barbed tails against a backdrop of crudely daubed crimson flames. The route was crowded with the virtuous and the curious. Much has been made of this burning. A primitive form of newsletter, avvisi e ricordi, had even been printed to inform people of the occasion: “An entertaining judicial burning was expected,” it declared. According to this tabloid of the day, “Bruno has declared he will die a willing martyr and that his soul will rise with the smoke to paradise.” Copies of the newsletter had been passed throughout the excited crowd and trampled upon along the wet road. As the parade moved on Bruno became animated and excited. He reacted to the mocking crowds, responding to their yells with quotes from his books and the sayings of the ancients. His comforters, the Brotherhood of St. John, tried to quiet the exchange, to protect Bruno from yet further pain and indignity, but he ignored them. And so, after a few minutes the procession was halted by the Servants of Justice. A gaoler was brought forward and another two held Bruno’s head rigid. A long metal spike was thrust through Bruno’s left cheek pinning his tongue and emerging through the right cheek. Then another spike was rammed vertically through his lips. Together, the spikes formed a cross. Great sprays of blood erupted onto his gown and splashed the faces of the Brotherhood close by. Bruno spoke no more.
A few minutes later the procession arrived at the site of the execution, campo di fiori, the Field of Flowers where, in one corner, opposite the theatre of Pompeii, the stake had been prepared. The guards led Bruno to the thick wooden post, shoved him up against it and wrapped a thick rope around him, across his shoulders, his chest, his waist and his legs. The faggots ( about which Bruno has once joked ) were piled up to the condemned man’s chin and the torch placed between his feet. The flames caught quickly in the light morning breeze. It has been claimed that many victims of the stake were saved a slow death by arranging a payment to the executioner who would surreptitiously snap their necks as they were tied to the post. We know this did not happened to Bruno for as the fire began to grip, the Brothers of the Pity of St. John the Beheaded tried one last time to save the man’s soul. Risking the flames, one of them leaned into the fire with a crucifix, but Bruno merely turned his head away. Seconds later, the fire caught his robe and seared his body, and above the hissing and crackling of the flames could be heard the man’s muffled agony. After the fire had subsided, what remained of Bruno’s body was smashed to powder with hammers and the ashes were cast to the wind so that no one could save anything of the heretic as a relic. As far as the Inquisition was concerned, they had obliterated Bruno, destroyed his body, banished his memory, his ideas, his writings, his very thought, and he had been consigned to Hell.
The Pope saw nothing that Bruno wrote in prison and the two men never met in private as Bruno had hoped. As Giordano burned that festive Thursday, 19 February 1600, the crowd cheered and waved their banners, children ran as close to the flames as they dared and frightened mothers pulled them back. And when the spectacle was over and the world cleansed of another heretic, Bruno’s ashes settled on ledges and in nearby fields. There the rain carried into the soil molecules that has once composed parts of his body. Over time, the molecules were broken open, their atoms absorbed by plants. The plants were eaten by animals and some found their way to the tables of Rome and beyond. Other elements of Bruno fell into water and were recycled to splash upon the faces of bathers and into drinking goblets. And so, perhaps, on an atomic level at least, the Pope himself was conjoined with the heretic after all.” As Bruno would have it: the universe is infinite, and as one. We are all each other. Everything is everything else.” Poch Suzara

Questions for the theologians

Who are we in time? Where are we in space? These theological questions are ignored in the bible. Here, however, are answers from an atheist-humanist-scientist, the late Carl Sagan: “We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy which is a member of a sparse cluster of galaxies, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are more galaxies than people.” Poch Suzara

Man - The Credulous Animal

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.” Bertrand Russell... However, due not from intelligent education, but precisely owing to silly indoctrination in schools, colleges, and universities - places where we learn to be insane morally and to be even more insane spirituality, instead of embracing the power of thinking, most men would rather have faith by sick believing... Poch Suzara Twitter# Facebook# Google#

Religious Fantasy

In the History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Owing to their miraculous powers, priests could determine whether a man should spend eternity in heaven or in hell. If he died while excommunicate, he went to hell; if he died after the priests had performed all the proper ceremonies, he would ultimately go to heaven provided he had duly repented and confessed. Before going to heaven, however, he would have to spend some time – perhaps a very long time – suffering the pains in purgatory. Priests could shorten this time by saying mass for his soul, which they were willing to do for a suitable money payment.”
To think that this business arrangement has been going on for centuries but there are millions upon millions of religious believers today who still believe in this priestly religious fantasy. Poch Suzara

Science in the Bible

In astronomy – the sun rotates round the earth. In geology – the earth is not round, but flat with four corners. In Biology – a human is created by a superhuman. In zoology – a snake can talk. In medicine – diseases are caused by the devil. Unfortunately, science in the bible is not science. It is psuedo-science written by ignorant and unlearned inspired authors of God who Himself did not know what he was doind. Poch Suzara

God Loves Man

God loves man? Why does God allow man to suffer? Against dreadful diseases, deadly insects, vicious beasts, poisonous reptiles, not to mention hurricanes, blizzards, droughts, floods, tidal waves, tornadoes, volcanoes, and earthquakes? And to add insult
to injury, God sent his only begotten Son to earth who preached something like: “But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them for me.” Luke 19:27. Well, to add more insult to more injury, God above says of his son below: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:17 And to think the Son of God had a human mother who was already married woman to Joseph. Poch Suzara

Only A Fool

Only a fool says there is no God? On the contrary, the motto of a fool is: “Let me trust God even if he has always fooled me in the past.” Poch Suzara

God-inspired Authors

How could God-inspired authors write anything false in the bible? In the Old Testament, for example, it is written: “The world also is established, and it cannot be moved.” Psalms 93:1. In the New Testament, it is written: “Then he called his twelve disciples, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.” Matt. 10: 1-8. Well, the earth not only rotates on its own axis daily, it also orbits around the sun yearly. Diseases have not been cured. They are still as deadly today as they were yesterday thanks to the miracles subject to expiration date from Jesus. Poch Suzara

Religious People

Religious people hate to talk about religion because it exposes their fear and ignorance. In order to justify a mindless spirituality, however, religious people must hide behind mediocrity and to hell with the beauty of veracity. Poch Suzara

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.