Poligiousity

Julius Larson – a freethinker from South Dakota invented this new word: poligiousity. Poligious has two meanings: using religion to pursue political aims; and, using politics to pursue religious aims. Poligiousity – excessively and obtrusively using religion to purse politics or using politics to pursue religion. In this connection, aside from social insanity, we Filipinos, - the most devout Christians in Asia, - enjoy as well the insanity of our historical poligiousity. Poch Suzara

Questions

Questions are either silly or intelligent. Here’s an example of a silly question: did God raise Jesus from the dead? The intelligent question, however, to ask is: Why did Jesus have to die to begin with? What did He accomplish? If Jesus died on the cross to destroy the devil – how come the devil is still alive today keeping Christianity in business as ever? But then again, where was God, the Father of Jesus, to have assisted Adam and Eve to reject the offers of the Talking Serpent – the devil – the very myth that gave birth to Christianity? Poch Suzara

Deeper Questions

Deeper questions are more important than the higher answers because, in the ultimate analysis, there is no such thing as a “higher” answer to deeper questions. There is no such thing as a God who fills the empty gap in our lack of higher knowledge. Otherwise, if there were a God, none of us need to bother with the morality or even the necessity of searching for more knowledge. In the meantime, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.” Poch Suzara

Joseph

The most pathetic character depicted in the bible is Joseph, the stepfather of Jesus. From the day Jesus was born and up to his death on the cross, Joseph never said anything. He was consistently speechless, if not taciturn. As depicted in the bible, he never even questioned his domestic situation. Apparently, Joseph got so dumbstruck because the Holy Spirit told him to his face that his wife Mary was, and always will be, - a virgin. In the meantime, how can a mother remain a virgin? And if God had a mother, who and where is God’s father? Poch Suzara

Freedom and Democracy

Before we can enjoy the benefits of freedom and democracy, we must first acquire education in science and in the scientific way of thinking. In this way, we would know exactly what to do with freedom creatively; and, we would also know exactly what to do with democracy constructively. It follows, therefore, that unless we have serious education in science and scientific way of thinking and living, our freedom will be meaningless and our democracy will be rather worthless. Poch Suzara

Family Planning

To be entrusted with a large family is a great responsibility. To be entrusted with feeding, clothing, housing, educating, and loving a large family is a greater responsibility. To acknowledge the fact, however, that uncontrolled human population growth leads to the depopulation of most other living species needed for human survival is the greatest responsibility. In the meantime, 500,000 babies were born in the Philippines just these past 3 months alone. Indeed, women in this country do not believe in having sex for fun. They are very serious in following the teachings of the church: multiply and replenish the earth - bring forth more babies, even if un-wanted, into our sick society for the glory of God in heaven. In the years to come most of the babies born today will eventually join all those 15 million Filipinos now living and working in 150 foreign countries. The attitude of such Filipinos is: who cares about love of country. I am better off earning a living to support my family in some other foreign country. Poch Suzara

More Than 100 Billion People

More than 100 Billion Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, Hindus, and Taoists have already lived and died on this earth. I ask: - when will the creator stop creating failures and losers in His own image and likeness? Indeed, we humans on this earth would rather show compassion for divinity and to hell with the troubles and problems of humanity. And that’s how stupid we all are embracing with deep faith our stupid religion. Poch Suzara

Biological Fact

The biological reality is that human life is related to all other forms of life on this earth. One form of life could only survive with other forms of life existing. In order to survive, and to evolve further, perhaps into higher forms of life, life must eat as food other forms of life. It is the poor product of a designer, if any; but obviously – poor planning from an all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent and all-loving creator, if any. Poch Suzara

A False Belief

A false belief, even if it were sincerely believed by 88 million people to be true, will not make it true. A belief is worth it only if it accords with the evidence. Otherwise it is harmful to believe in things that are not true. Poch Suzara

Catholics

Catholics are taught to follow faithfully the teachings of the Church. One such teaching has been and still is: - Do Not read the Bible without proper spiritual guidance. Thus, Catholics are shamelessly ignorant of bible contents and its mythological sources. Poch Suzara

Peace On Earth

“Peace on earth and goodwill to all men” are sentiments best articulated by the poor people getting poorer, and certainly not by the rich people getting richer. The rich do not care for peace on earth and goodwill to all men. They only have time to hope and to pray that others will not get any richer than they are already. Once I was told to my face: If you were so damned smart, why aren’t you rich? I replied: well, if you were so damned rich, how come you want nothing more in life but only to become richer? Poch Suzara

Bush, Not Katrina

Not the Katrina Hurricane, but the George W. Bush presidency is one of the worst disasters that hit the United States of America. The damage brought by Katrina hurricane based upon reality of nature can be repaired in less than 3 years. The George W. Bush presidential damage on the USA based upon his local lies and global falsehoods and other expensive fairy tales will take 30 years to repair. It’s incredible how the United States government – the greatest and the richest government in the world today encourages hate and violence around the world as a way of generating unceasingly the equally great American military-industrial-university-oil complex. Poch Suzara

Adolf Hitler

In his MEIN KAMPF, Hitler wrote: “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jews, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.“ ( page 65 ). And to think that Hitler was once a cute little baby created in the image and likeness of God. Not to mention Hitler was also raised and educated as a good Christian. Poch Suzara

Success Versus Failure

We do not learn from success. We only learn from failure. In this sense, I hope to be a failure for the rest of my life. In the meantime, within my lifetime, I still have high hopes that one day, in the corporate world, I will meet men of success who are not selfish, or greedy, or stupid, or insane. Poch Suzara

Science

Science will continue to be powerful in making knowledge and wisdom accessible to everyone. Sadly, however, the enemies of science – religion and politics – still maintain the virtues of fear and ignorance. Please read the holy bible. It admits: - For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. For my part, as an individual fascinated with science and the scientific way of thinking, I thought it best to throw the bible out of my holy window. Poch Suzara

National Ignorance

It is still being taught today in our schools that God created the world in 6 days some 6,000 years ago. It is also being taught in such schools that as long as we have deep faith in God, it does not matter even if we Filipinos are only getting poorer and famous as the Sick Man of Asia. Other Asians do not find employment in the Philippines, but many Filipinos feel so blessed by God when they find employment in other Asian countries. To think that China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia are countries that have grown and developed,indeed, flourished without belief in Jesus as the Savior of the world. In the meantime, ignorance is like a ubiquitous plant. It grows in every soil. Ignorance even grows in our schools, colleges, and universities. Especially when our teachers and professors have neither the interests nor the time nor the responsibility to learn the latest findings on the subject they teach. Poch Suzara

The Bible Tells us

The bible tells us to be like God, and then page after page it describes God as a cruel, capricious, and vindictive as a divinity quite a supernatural character with His crimes against humanity. And to think that this is the same God who tells parents to love their children, but He Himself had the gall to have drowned His own. Poch Suzara

With Faith or Without faith in God

With faith or without faith in God, good believers do good and evil believers do evil. But when good believers do evil that takes deep faith in God. Nothing, however, causes more evil than living in fear of God especially as inspired by faith in sacred ignorance. Poch Suzara

If Science were a Religion

If science were a religion, how come science must only have faith in the existence of doubt? If doubt never existed, science could not have been born. Indeed, if science were a religion, it is the religion of skepticism. In the meantime, the track record of religion looks pretty awful. We see religion still encouraging ignorance, superstition, and the rigidity of stupidity. Humanity might have been better off without religion as religion is only a pie in sky by and by, and a rotten pie at that and feeds nothing but illusions, if not delusions. Poch Suzara

Dear Jim Edwards:

Thank you for your most interesting letter. I am sad you gave up philosophy for mythology and theology. If you had only carried on the study of philosophy a little deeper, as a lifetime adventure, you would have finally come to terms not with fantasy but with reality – the little of it that we know. Indeed, even science acknowledges with all honesty that it knows not more than 1 per cent of what constitutes reality. Imagine the other 99 per cent. But let us not entertain fantasy. There is still much to discover and to learn. As far as I am concerned, questions are far more important than answers because in time the answers become obsolete. Indeed, the formulation of better kind of questions pretty much give meaning to my life. Now you might retort: what if there were already all the answers? I would only reply that the answers, whatever they are, would always entail new questions as, at the heart of everything, is a question, not an answer. When we peer down into the deepest recesses of matter or at the farthest edge of the universe, we see, finally, our own puzzled faces looking back at us. Jim, you asked: Where am I going? In life I know where I am going. In death, however, I will be going nowhere. It does not bother me to realize that after my death there will be nothing; just as much as it did not bother me to have realized that before birth, I was a nothing too. True, there are a great many worlds out there, but how am I to participate or enjoy such a world after I am dead and turned into ashes? My identity as a person is depended on my memory and my memory, it seems clear to me, cannot survive if my brain is dead and rotting. So how will I be “me” in the next or other world? With what eyes will I see? With what ears will I hear? With what skin will I feel? With what nose will I smell? With what tongue will I speak? Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore what will survive will be my energy but not anymore bundled up together as my body. My body will die and disintegrate. In the meantime, energy is part of nature just as much as nature is part of energy. Energy is here to stay inside existence, not outside of existence otherwise known as the universe. But me, as Poch Suzara, is no more. As to my wasting my life believing that there will be a better world to come after I am dead – I have stopped entertaining such silly nonsense. I would rather do my best and try to leave this world a better place than how I found it. Not in the authoritarian, but in the sense humanitarian. This is the reason why I have embarked on a lifetime war against the evils of religion. Religion makes us selfish, greedy, stupid, and insane. The world needs sane mind and sane hearts to straighten out the insane mess that keeps our world perpetually in hate and violence of each other. We must look to science and its power to make the life of our children and grandchildren better. The average life span today is 80 years. Science promises to increase the task to l20 up to 150 years, In fact, I would not be surprised when science will conquer death itself and insure immortality for man after birth, and not, like in religion - after death. And I am glad that religion has taken the back seat and today even begging to co-exist with science – indeed, to reconcile with science. Is this possible? I say Yes, but religion must first reconcile and co-exist with other religions before science can entertain the merger. Today I am 68 years old. Too late for me to take advantage of such scientific miracles. But my grandchildren and their children will live entirely different lives than we do today. Hopefully, instead of fighting human stupidity on this grain of sand called earth, they will be conquering the outer planets and colonizing the stars. To me, this is a better ambition for Man than looking forward to meeting a silly God with a silly son who, have yet to make sense of themselves as supernatural beings. Imagine this Son of God Jesus cried out on the cross to His father: MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? If this were the kinds of supernatural morons I will meet in the next life, I would rather stay perpetually dead and buried forever on this earth. Jim, with due respect, please let me share with you Bertrand Russell: “There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflections to any logical conclusion. Moreover, as he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed. He therefore adopts persecution, censorship, and a narrowly cramping education as essential of statecraft. In so far as he is successful, he produces a population which is timid and unadventurous and incapable of progress. Authoritarian rulers have always aimed at producing such a population. They have usually succeeded, and by their success have brought their countries to ruin.” Human Society in Ethics and Politics With all good wishes, Poch Suzara Sept. 11, 2005