Sex

To bring forth children into this world of hate and poverty is the greatest of crime. Men and women have yet to learn how to have sex for fun since only very few couples, married or un-married, have the ability or the talent to raise children with loved and affection. Children that are wanted, needed, and loved are never a disgrace; on the contrary, they always grow up to be a grace to the human race. If peace on earth and goodwill to all men will ever become a terrestrial reality one day, it will be due to all children being born welcomed not only by both mothers and fathers, but by a sane society in general.
To me, in my simplicity, mothers and children are the most precious people in this world. I should therefore be very careful and most concerned in how such precious children and precious mothers are being multiplied and replenished on this earth. Poch Suzara

Religion and Science

Science at its best is the rebellion against divinity. It is the exact opposite of religion – at its best it is the rebellion against deviltry. Indeed, in any human enterprise, science produces the greatest and the most original burst of creativity. Religion encourages only stupidity in facing reality as it promotes local as well as global insanity. Poch Suzara

War

War is not only a clash of values and cultures; it is not only a political decision; it is not only nature’s way of blasting stupid men out of their stupid existence. War is mostly about the owners, stockholders, and the traders of the arms industry who make tons of money. They pray daily to God to inspire nations to hate and to kill each other, especially in His name on this earth and for His glory in heaven. Poch Suzara

Eternal Salvation

Nothing could be more truthful than the belief that the dead man lives no more. Nothing could be more untruthful than the belief that the dead man is still alive.
In the meantime, the belief that we will be happy or unhappy after death of the body, is to pretend that we will be able to see without eyes, to hear without ears, to taste without a palate, to smell without a nose, and to feel without hands and without skin. Indeed, the dogma of immortality is purely based upon the condition of a dead man who refuses to believe that he is already dead. Poch Suzara

Born Ignorant

We are all born ignorant, not stupid; we are made stupid by education. And to think that God gifted man with a free will in order that we may be happy with our stupid education down here. Indeed, to the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness; especially for the sake of anything out there. Poch Suzara

Psuedo-Atheist

There is no such animal as a psuedo-atheist. Either you are a genuine atheist or just a religious clown pretending to be one. Once, however, you have seen the bright light of atheism, it is ridiculous to go back to embrace darkness called theism. Otherwise, if you do, you are either a “psycho-ceramic” in the scientific term; or, in the layman’s term, - a “crackpot.” Indeed, a troubled brain believes everything. It examines nothing. We atheists are fully aware that religion buys its benefits at too dear a price: - the mindless surrender of the self via the mutilation of the intellect. Atheism is all about the power of reason. It is also about the bed-rock of sanity in a world gone mad. We atheists do not want to believe. We want to know. And we know that the search for the truth is man’s most noble profession. Prove to us that God exists and we will prove to you that God is neither a Catholic, nor a Muslim, nor a Jew, or what have you. Intelligent thinking is far more valuable to an atheist than infantile believing. In the history of our world, no atheist has ever waged violence and war against other atheists for not believing in God. In the ultimate analysis, we do not hate life nor do we live in fear of death. We have no fear of what is known neither do we tremble before what is unknown. The human race is alone and insecure and doomed. Let us meet these facts with cheerfulness, courage, love, beauty, and the joys in life. Let us carry on the pursuit of our ideals for human happiness in the here and the now. We atheists would rather stand and face death with intellectual sobriety. We do not care to meet death on our bended knees drunk with ecclesiastical mendacity. Poch Suzara

I love and respect Scientists

In the conflict between the theology against science, I am on the side of the scientists. Never will I ever be on the side of the theologians. Especially the kind I had as my teachers in De La Salle University. They always threatened me with “believe this, because if you don’t, God will punish you.” I was therefore always punished in class because far more than I wanted to believe, I wanted to know and understand. In class, I always asked questions. I always wanted to formulate for myself better kinds of questions. Indeed, for me, hard intelligent thinking is more fascinating than just easy stupid believing.
With Jose Rizal, however, outside academic wall, it was, for him, a deadly experience. Theologians threatened him with: “Retract the truthful things you wrote about us in your NOLI and FILI books or we will have you executed in public by a firing squad.” Rizal virtually replied: “go fly a kite!” The theologians with authority and power over the civil government had Rizal put to death. In order to intimidate not only the brave thinkers in the minority, but also throughout the land – to frighten to death the cowardly and faithful believers in the majority.
And to think that today college educated men and women in this country would rather believe the theologians than be on the side of a mature and a courageous scientist like a Jose Rizal. He was, indeed, the first Filipino scientist who tried to generate the revolution of the mind to get the Filipino growing with self-respect as a people and to get the Philippines developing with dignity as a nation.
I ask: is it any wonder that in this 21st century we are known as the Sick Man of Asia? We live in a poor and backward country. Indeed, what have we Filipinos got to show for ourselves except, as a people, we can only be proud of the failures of our social and political and religious values under the great success of Christianity in the Philippines? Poch Suzara

Our Asian Neighbors

The secret why other Asian neighbors are economically ahead of the Philippines is no secret at all. They have been substantiating 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!”
Indeed, in this center of Catholicism in Asia, we would rather have more faith in the power of prayer and theology than seek the power of knowledge, science, and technology. 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 deserved not to be respected or admired as a hero. He should, instead, be canonized a saint. But then again, if Rizal had retracted, why then should the church feel dedicated 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 popularly known as Christianity. Thus, the story of his retraction was nothing more than a theological concoction to sanitize, if not to neutralize considerably the volume of Rizal’s humanistic and scientific messages to his people - the Filipino people. Poch Suzara

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. Indeed, according to this official government commissioned biographer, our national hero in the end turned out to be a turncoat.
But then again, four years before his death, 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

The Shame in Rizal’s Life

The shame in Rizal’s life is not the retraction of his deeds, writings or personal conduct. Such retraction was only a frailocratic figment of the impoverished priestly imagination. The real shame comes from the Filipino historians and other Catholic writers who believed not in Rizal’s power of intellect, but believed instead his enemies – the friars – who invented sacred lies about this great man. Via the control of the system of education in the Philippines, these friars have and still are blocking, expediently and consistently, Rizal’s qualified and legitimate entry into the world stage as one of mankind’s greatest thinkers. But then again how can the world learn of Rizal’s intellectual power if the Filipinos themselves know so little of the health and wealth of this great 19th century Filipino scientists and thinker and writer? Poch Suzara

Rizal of Ateneo and UST

Rizal was a product of Ateneo and Santo Thomas; yet both Catholic universities continue to assassinate the character of this great humanist thinker. Rizal had learned on his own initiative, outside academic wall, how to think deeply and how to embrace intellectual honesty valiantly. Indeed, to this day, all Catholic universities still teach that during his last day on this earth, just hours before he was executed for his principles, noble values, and rational beliefs, Rizal retracted and went back to embrace the Catholic Church and its teachings. What brazen lies! It is no less than a tall story. A cheap shot at a great man. Otherwise, after his death, he should have been given a Catholic burial and his bodily remains not just put inside an old sack and thrown in the Paco Cemetery in the corner where heretics are stashed away like dead animals. Poch Suzara

Rizal and Education

Jose Rizal pointed out that evolution in education, ( not reliance on foreign investments ), is the best hope of the nation to enjoy the highest standard of living and thinking. The system of education for the Filipino must be based on science and technology, and not on prayers and theology. Indeed, according to Rizal, a free nation can rise no higher than the standard of beliefs and values set in its schools, colleges, and universities. In there hope for the Philippines? Yes, there is! But first its system of education must be radically revamped. No more silly prayers to support a stupid theology. Only more science and more technology via more scientific method of thinking. Poch Suzara

Rizal – the Humanist

Rizal struggled not only against Spanish authority, but against superstition. He fought not in the battlefield, but in the minds of men and in the hearts of women. Rizal was Asia’s first scientific-humanist thinker put to death a century ago by musketry as imposed by theocracy. The same Catholic theocracy today that is keeping the Filipino youth via education to live in guilt and to fear new and fresh ideas; indeed, to keep away from the free market of ideas, and to hate, at the same time, the freethinkers, especially the books written by freethinkers. “Blotting out their brains,” Rizal wrote, “in faith, prayers, masses, novenas, superimposed these onto native superstition.” Poch Suzara

A century after Rizal’s Death

After a hundred years, how influential has Jose Rizal been on the Filipino as a people? Millions today would readily give credence by listening to the words of a Mike Velarde of El Shaddai preaching pastoral nonsense derived from the bible – a book written not by Filipinos but by foreigners. Only a handful of scholars would care to read and understand the real Rizal and carry out his principles and ideals for the achievement of pride, dignity, intellectual and scientific honesty for the Filipino as a nation. And to think, the Jews, the Chosen People of God, never considered the bible as a holy book at any time in their history. In fact, the Jews live in a Jewish State. They do not live in a Christian country – the land where Jesus Christ was presumably born. Poch Suzara

Rizal and Ninoy Aquino

Ninoy Aquino said: “The Filipino is worth dying for.” Well, Ninoy is a hero today. Filipinos killed him. Imagine Jose Rizal having said too: “The Catholics are worth dying for.” Rizal today would be a saint. The Catholics had him killed. And this is exactly how sick we all are today as the Sick Man of Asia. Thanks to Filipino catholic theologians, like Father Jose S. Arcilla, S.J., and his gang who have not ceased writing brazen lies about Jose Rizal’s soul saved in heaven. What a crock of religious lies generating hypocrisy! Poch Suzara

Rizal – a great Thinker

Rizal, indeed, was a great thinker. He clearly saw in his day what we vaguely see around us today: religion and diseases flourishing hand in hand under ignorance, filth, hate, and poverty. What irked the friars against Rizal was his refusal to continue to believe in Christianity; for, he learned to be on the side of humanity. For my part, if there’s life after death, it’s great thinkers like Rizal that I should wish to be with. Otherwise, if I will just find myself in the company of Filipino theologians, or among the Opus Dei gang – the kind of people who had Rizal put to death, please Lord spare me the sacred horror. I would rather be forever in hell. Poch Suzara

The Spanish Friars

The Spanish Catholic friars arrived in the Philippines bringing with them the holy bible and Christianity. They stole our land. Crushed our sense of human dignity and self-respect. And now via the schools, colleges, and universities that they own and control, the Catholic Church teaches us to be always grateful to the Lord for having saved us. In the meantime, if the Spanish friars had only introduced the concept of humanism instead of establishing in the Philippines religious barbarism and other forms of supernaturalism, Filipino priests like Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora need not have been garroted to death for wanting reforms within the Catholic Church in their time. Moreover, great thinkers like Jose Rizal need not have been arrested, incarcerated, and executed by Catholic firing squad for writing the NOLI and FILI - 2 books that could have brought enlightenment to the Filipino minds and hearts to earn national pride as a people and Asian dignity as a nation. Poch Suzara

Lies about Rizal

Rizal never said or wrote: “It was my pride that ruined me.” Those words were put into the mouth of Rizal by his official prize-winning biographer Leon Maria Guerrero who believed, as a Catholic, the Rizal retraction story as concocted by the sciolistic friars. Moreover, Rizal never “got rid of his political appetite, moral perplexities, and intellectual pride.” On the contrary, Rizal chose to die proudly. After the superstitious friars stripped him of his dignity, it was no longer possible for Rizal to go on living as a decent man and as a thinking Filipino. Poch Suzara

Rizal ’s Killers

What kind of men needed to see Rizal dead, discarded and forgotten? Were they men of reason, logic, science or philosophy? Were they avid readers, critical thinkers, or scientific investigators? Were they men at home with civilized humanity? No! On the contrary, Rizal’s enemies were the friends of blind faith: - the superstitious primitives, the sanctimonious hypocrites, and those indeed who were selfish, greedy, corrupt, stupid, and insane. Rizal’s enemies of a hundred years ago, are still the same enemies we have today. They are the ones insisting that it makes no difference whether Rizal retracted from his religious, political and philosophical principles or not. What a silly conclusion to bestow upon the greatest of Filipino seminal thinker who died for the liberation of the Filipino mind and heart, and indeed, for all mankind. Shame on you cowards - the so-called “Knights of Rizal.” Poch Suzara