Wealth of the Mind

Dear College Professor,

I felt quite moved by your letter. Thank you for writing it. I sympathize much with your plight as a teacher. Indeed, a teacher, like the artist, philosopher, and the man of letters can only perform his work adequately if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner sense of creative discipline.

You are quite right. I hated school as I was eager to learn. However, Instead of a thrill, La Salle for me, was a threat. My questions were always belittled, disparaged, if not turned into a mockery. None of my teachers conveyed, even as a hint, that questions are much more valuable than answers. Indeed questions are more valuable than answers because, in time, answers become obsolete. Except perhaps for the Multiplication Table – the perfect model of truth which is precise, certain, and free from all temporal dross. But notice our college graduates: they are much more at home with obsolete answers than they are equipped to ask intelligent questions: – the whole basis of science and the scientific way of thinking.

Teachers are the guardians of civilization. In the Philippines, however, teachers are the guardians of faith. Sadly, faith is the sacred word we often use to justify our lazy mentality. But look deep at the man of faith. He is like a drunkard who clings to a
lamppost for support; not illumination.

Consider education not as an accumulation of facts and dates, but as an ennobling intimacy with the lives of great men and women. Great individuals who had the power and the courage to put beauty where nature has put only horror. We think of education as the transmission of a certain body of settled knowledge, when it should rather be the development of a scientific habit of mind. Consider education not as a
preparation of the individual “to make a living,” but as the development of every potential capacity in him for the comprehension and appreciation of this life in this world. Education is the reason why we behave like human beings. We are hardly born human; we are born wet, ridiculous and like malodorous animals; we become human, we have humanity thrust upon us not with faith of the unknown, but precisely with the knowable that builds up the power of knowledge.

Ours is not a society of all for the well-being of all. Ours is a society of the Sick Man of Asia. We even praise the Lord for developments in our sick society. We pride ourselves as a people who have faith in God. We are proud to believe that the enemy of our religion is science. As a matter of fact, the enemy of our religion is not science, but other religions. At any rate, what can you expect of a people who, when they were children in school, were taught to believe not only in the power of God, but that same God will provide for them in the future?

Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. Sadly, we Filipinos have more faith in sacred lies than we are interested to discover the truth. I blame the schools, colleges and universities. Lifetime critical thinking and the joy of habitual reading have yet to take root in our system of education. Thus, freedom of expression, the growth of creative impulse, the enhancement of open-mindedness are treasures that should be the main part in any system of education. The frontiers of knowledge are never closed.

If we were permitted, for example, to reason out our religious beliefs with logic, it is clear we all ought to be not Christians, but Jews because Jesus, our Savior, was born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew, and admitted that he was fulfilling the Jewish religion. Notice the place where Jesus was born. Israel today is not a Christian country, but a Jewish State. In the meantime, thanks to our so-called education, we have more prepared for next life and hardly feel at home with this life in this world. Yes Sacha, just like you and everyone else, I too was born an atheist. No baby is born with a religion. All babies are atheists: Free from theism. No baby is born a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Baptist, or a Catholic. We are all born free and then indoctrinated. A few of us, after having attained the age of intellectual discretion, become, in the real sense of the term: Born-again atheist. Indeed. I gradually became a born-again atheist after much studying and reading the bible. Properly read the bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived by man. I have written a booklet about my biblical findings. If you give me your mailing address, I’d happy to mail you and your associates free copies for your perusal. You might be surprised to learn that theologians now dead knew no more than the theologians still living. Now you might ask: what happens to me after death? Well, It does not bother me to realize that I will be a nothing after I am dead; just as much as it does not bother me to realize that before I was born, I was also a nothing. I do not care for salvation in the next world. I care, however, to leave this world a much better place than how I found it. At least in the humanitarian sense.

What we Filipinos need is not more indoctrination based on faith; but more education based upon the attitude of scientific inquiry. Liberation of creativeness ought to be the principle of reform in our system of education. After all, poverty of the mind is undesirable in any sane society. But how is wealth of the mind possible for our youth when our schools, colleges and universities are under the control, if not owned by bigoted businessmen in cahoots with corrupt politicians who in turn are forgiven daily of their sins by the silly theologians?

In the final analysis, there is nothing tragic about having been raised by ignorant parents or grandparents at home; or educated by ignorant teachers in school; or indoctrinated into one’s faith by ignorant priest in church. What’s truly tragic, however, is if, in later life, under more fear and ignorance, we refuse to learn
anything truthful at all. We just carry on with our children and grandchildren to have faith in the same old religious hypocrisy; to have faith in the same old political stupidity; and to have faith in our insane society. Indeed, in this country, thanks to our education based on faith, we all love God up there, and we do so by hating one another down here.

With all good wishes,
Poch Suzara