Jerry Lewis

I met Jerry Lewis at his home in Beverly Hills, California in l967. He had already heard about me from my sister. Especially about my activism having been primarily responsible for setting up the Philippine branch of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation in l964. We were then struggling against the Vietnam War in particular; and, against the concept of war as a way of settling international disputes in general.
Jerry’s greeting words to me: “Hi there, Poch – you poverty-stricken Filipino!” I retorted: “Hi there, Jerry – you rich-stricken Jew!” Jerry looked at my sister, laughingly said: “I like this brother of yours.” Jerry indeed, is a great comedian and, I must add, on and off the stage - a great man.
I salivated with envy as I was particularly impressed with him not because he was such a world famous Hollywood celebrity, but because of his huge personal library of great books. A few he himself had authored.
His son Gary of the Playboys, an equally famous singer and rock drummer ( I am a jazz drummer myself ) married my sister - Jinky. Sadly, it did not turn out to be a happy matrimony. After three years, it ended in a divorce. Both, however, have an only daughter – Sara. She is married now with two children – the first two great-grandkids of Jerry Lewis
Since 1966, every Labor Day, the Jerry Lewis Telethon has already raised more than a BILLION DOLLARS to fight and to find the cure for Muscular Dystrophy – a disorder of the skeletal muscles characterized by weakness.
Despite the existence of the American Medical Association, and the Food and Drug Administration, and its partner in business – the American Pharmaceutical industry that’s dearly protected by the Federal Trade Commission - there are more cases of Muscular Dystrophy victims in America today than ever before. Hopefully, the cure is just around the corner.
For my part, though I have neither the ability nor the popularity to raise billions, I too, have been fighting, in my own little ways, to find a cure of a disease of the worst kind. It continues to infect a great many people worldwide. It is called religion – born of fear and ignorance and superstition. Indeed, religion is what is keeping our world poor spiritually and backward scientifically. In America, a billion dollars can be raised for healing, but trillions of dollars are readily available for killing. Thanks to religion and its ability to spread more fear, ignorance, and superstition everywhere throughout our world.
In the meantime, Jerry Lewis continues his own fight to help financially find the cure for muscular dystrophy in America one day. I ardently wish him more power and success in his humanitarian works and dedication. Poch Suzara

A Word Missing

There is one last word missing in God’s 5th command - Thou shalt not kill. At the rate the human heart has been more proned to hate than to love in this world since the beginning, the one last word missing in God’s 5th command is the word: - HATE. Poch Suzara

The Supernatural

The problem with the existence of the supernatural is that it exists only outside the human brain! How could we possibly believe in the existence of the supernatural that does not even exist inside our brain? How come, on the day we arrived on this earth, none of us had brain to know anything about the existence of the supernatural? Poch Suzara

Women in the Bible

Woman as written in the bible is depicted as the main cause of the Fall of Man, and why men are corrupt and depraved. This is obvious in the Old and in the New Testament. When Jesus, however, said, love one another, he was referring to men, not to women. Poch Suzara

Stephen Hawking

Is a brilliant scientist on a wheelchair who writes books with his brilliant mind even as his body fails him. In his Brief History of Time, Hawking wrote: “Throughout the 70s I had been mainly studying black holes, but in 1981 my interest in questions about the origin of and fate of the universe was reawakened when I attended a conference on cosmology organized by the Jesuits in the Vatican. The Catholic Church had made a bad mistake with Galileo when it tried to lay down the law on the question of science, declaring that the sun went round the earth. Now centuries later, it has decided to invite a number of experts to advise it on cosmology. At the end of the conference the participants were granted an audience with the pope. He told us that it was all right to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but we should not inquire into the big bang itself because that was the moment of Creation and therefore the work of God. I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference – the possibility that space-time was infinite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of Creation.”
In this world, we have, no doubt, monuments to human mediocrity; but we certainly do also have men of science like a Stephen Hawking who is a monument to the human spirit. Poch Suzara

God and Allah

One would think that after all these past centuries of conflict and misunderstanding, God and Allah would have already smoked the peace pipe to enjoy peace and goodwill with each other. Both should have already inspired their respective followers – the Christians and the Muslims to stop the hate and the killing of each other for the glory of the either. But no! These supernatural brats apparently want to remain like a couple of supernatural brats for the rest of eternity.
I beg of you Christians and Muslims – why don’t you dump your respective beliefs and stop emulating supernatural childishness? Neither God nor Allah is worth loving or dying for. Let’s all live in peace together and have faith in each other for the sake of global sanity. Let's all enjoy peace on earth and goodwill to all men for the sake of our human family. Poch Suzara

Only in the Philippines

We start everything with a prayer. We end everything with a prayer. Indeed, in this only Christian country in Asia, when all else fail, we only say more prayers. After all, what is important to us is our faith in divinity. Never mind the failure of our values or the success of social insanity in this Asia's only Christian country. Poch Suzara

There is Nothing Wrong

There is nothing wrong with either the admission or the belief that something exists beyond our understanding. What is ludicrous, however, is when we love, worship, and adore that something, specially if everyone else knows absolutely nothing about that something. Poch Suzara

National Catholic Almanac

According to the National Catholic Almanac, “God” is defined as “Almighty, Eternal, Holy, Immortal, Immense, Immutable, Ineffable, Infinite, Invisible, Just, Loving, Merciful, Most High, Most Wise, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Patient, Perfect, Provident, Supreme, and Incomprehensible.
I ask: If God were incomprehensible, how did any one come to know about the twenty-two other supernatural qualities of God. Poch Suzara

A Logical Unity

“A logical unity,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “is at once a strength and a weakness. It is a strength because it insures that whoever accepts one stage of the argument must accept all later stages. It is a weakness because whoever rejects any of the later stages must also reject some, at least, of the earlier stages.”
For my part, I reject the earlier stages of what’s written in the Old Testament, and I therefore cannot accept the later stages of what's written in the New Testament. It is as simple as that. Poch Suzara

Generosity

Giving away things you might need in the future is the true measure of generosity. Otherwise, giving away things you want discarded is not generosity. It is a mockery of charity. It is a form of religious vulgarity. Poch Suzara

If we only Knew

If we only knew for certain that there is life after death, and that death is more superior than life, then suicide should be a happy remedy out of human misery. We fear death, however, because we know absolutely nothing of its aftermath, if any. At any rate, how can the dead human body decomposing and rotting recognize and enjoy at same time the lively experience of life after death?
For my part, instead of contemplating on death, I would rather try and substantiate the words of a famous atheist – Bertrand Russell: “I consider old age a time to struggle for human decency – like any other.” Poch Suzara

The Theologian versus the Philosopher

The philosopher values the life of the mind. The theologian, on the other hand, values the life of the soul. Unfortunately for the theologian, the soul cannot be understood without the power of the intellect. The philosopher therefore is a far more superior thinker than the theologian can ever hope to be. Poch Suzara

The Creative Mind

In the material sense, a man may be worth something. But if he remains thoughtless to the good life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge, his life in the end will be worth nothing. It is not worldly possessions, but the creative mind that is clearly the major aspect of who or what we are that matters. Francis Bacon admonished: “Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied, or its loss will not be felt.” Poch Suzara

Passport to the Next Life

It’s easy to apply for a passport issued by the church to travel to the next life. All that’s required is baptism in holy water. What’s hard to acquire, however, is the visa to go to heaven. It requires a lifetime of fear, ignorance, pain, suffering, misery, poverty, stupidity, and indeed, insanity. And to think that everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Poch Suzara

The Greatest Failures in Life

The greatest failures in life are those who live with the right answers to wrong questions. The greatest success, however, are those who question everything as the answers, with few exceptions, in time, become obsolete. Only the few have the courage to question what has always been taken for granted. The many, always living in fear, question nothing. Indeed, they hate the power of a question. What they love is faith. Faith has the power to make people timid comfortably, if not lazy mentally. In the Philippines, however, faith has even been quite a success as the engine generating the failure of our values that is promoting the success of what makes us the Sick Man of Asia. Poch Suzara

Notice

Ever notice how God is never around each time he is needed or wanted. Even his son Jesus, who took on a human form, after a few years on this earth, some two thousand years ago, decided to disappear out of sight away from everybody!
In the meantime, churches are empty on Sundays in European countries. It is the same situation in the United States. The ones who still go to church, however, are the Filipinos. They do not believe that God is everywhere. We have been taught to believe that God can be found, somehow, only inside a church or a cathedral. Poch Suzara

On Being Negative

Those who fought to abolish slavery were considered “negative” by the slave traders. Indeed, slavery was eventually abolished by those who were negative toward the evil business of slave trading. For my part, I am known to be “negative” too in my fight to abolish religious teachings in our schools, colleges, and universities. I would rather be “negative” in the eyes of the religious morons spreading silly faith in the supernatural that's keeping us selfish, greedy, stupid, and insane as a sick and a corrupt society as ever. Poch Suzara

Knowledge is Power

Knowledge is power; but that’s only half true. The other half that is true is when knowledge is put into effect. It then becomes a real power which is defined as the production of desired effects. Poch Suzara

A Strong Leader for the Philippines?

It is highly recommended that Jesus Christ be the one and only strong leader for Filipinos. As if Jesus Christ, who was not born in the Philippines, should have anything to do with Filipino values and beliefs.
Jesus Christ was born in Israel that today is not even a Christian country. It is a Jewish State. If Jesus Christ, who was himself a Jew, was never a leader in his own country, how and why should he be a leader in the Philippines? As a matter of fact, where is Jesus Christ? He is not even in Israel today? Nobody knows where Jesus is! Even the Filipino bishops do not know his whereabouts!
What we need in this country is not a strong leader but a strong system of education that gives birth to a strong people and, indeed, a strong nation. Unfortunately, our system of education has nothing to do with science developing the human intelligence. Learning in our schools, colleges, and universities is mostly about religion: - the preparation for the next life; or, worst, about the preparation for the coming of the Lord who will solve all our troubles and problems in this life. Poch Suzara