A God-fearing atheist

Here are all of the quotes salvaged from Bob Ong's original compilation:

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. - Albert Camus If I believed in an outside force that we wanted to call God, and I believe that there is one, I think God would appreciate what I say, because I can't see God wanting to create a world full of idiots. - Marilyn Manson It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic. - W. Somerset Maugham, 'Of Human Bondage', 1915 Agnostic (n). A God-fearing atheist I don't care if it rains or freezes, 'long as I' got my plastic Jesus, sittin' on the dashboard of my car; It makes no difference if we hit a bump, -he's held on by a suction cup, sittin' on the dashboard of my car. I can even go a hundr'd miles-an-hour, as long as I've got that dee-vine power, sittin' on the dashboard of my car. - "Plastic Jesus," circa 1969, sign-on song of disk jockey Don Imis ...But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? - Mark Twain from: ang paboritong libro ni hudas by Bob Ong And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What?" If we do not need to worship God six days in the week, why do we need to worship him on the seventh? - Lemuel K. Washburn I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it. - Serendipity (Dogma) Atheist Christmas movie: "Coincidence On 34th Street" There are no facts, only interpretations. - Friedrich Nietzsche Where facts are few, experts are many. - Donald R. Gannon Calvin: Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man? Hobbes: I'm not sure that man needs the help. Do you think people know what they want? - God (Bruce Almighty) That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is a grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Every man is a God, if he chooses to recognize this fact. - Anton LaVey You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire; you build egos the size of cathedrals; fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse; grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God... and where can you go from there? - John Milton aka Satan (The Devil's Advocate) I had an experience. I can't prove and can't explain. But everything that I know as a human being tells me that it was real. I was given something wonderful, that changed me forever. A vision of the universe, that tells us undeniably, that we belong to something that is greater than ourselves, and that none of us is alone. - Ellie Arroway (Contact) 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 In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time. - Edward P. Tryon I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him. - Gabriel Garcia Marquez Before God we are all equally wise—and equally foolish. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking. - H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956) To be a saint is the exception; to be upright is the rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. Sin is a gravitation. - Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables' A hypocrite is a person who—but who isn't? - Don Marquis It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be. - Sigmund Freud And God said, "Jeeze, this is dull." And it *was* dull. - Genesis 0:0 Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag. - Alexander Solzhenitsyn He who never thinks of anything as ‘mine’ does not feel the lack of anything: he is never worried by a sense of loss. - Buddha (568-488 BC, Founder of Buddhism) Never eat more than you can lift. - Miss Piggy It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. - Mark Twain Feminist theologians tell us that God is female. But what about the devil? What about her? I'm looking for loopholes. - WC Fields, when caught reading the Bible The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool. - Jane Wagner Never take ecstasy, beer, baccardi, weed, pepto bismol, vivarin, tums, tagamet hb, xanax, and valium in the same day. It makes it difficult to sleep at night. - Eminem, on drugs Comic Truth .2: Exposure to deadly radiation = Super powers. If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing. Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Whoever controls the media—the images—controls the culture. - Allen Ginsberg Did your parents just make me up so you'd be a good boy? - The Devil (Bedazzled) The greatest trick the devil ever pulled on the world was convincing us he didn't exist. - Verbal Kent (Usual Suspects) The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad, has made the world ugly and bad. - Friedrich Nietzsche The greatest ignorance is rejecting that which you know absolutely nothing about. - Jessica Branch I still went to church regularly, though, until I was eighteen years old. Then suddenly, the light bulb went on over my head. All the mindless morbidity and discipline was pretty sick - bleeding this, painful that and no meat on Friday. What is this shit?" - Frank Zappa Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. People break down into two groups when they experience something lucky. Group number one sees it as more than luck, more than coincidence. They see it as a sign, evidence, that there is someone up there, watching over them. Group number two sees it as just pure luck. Just happy chance. And surely, the people in Group number two are looking at those fourteen lights in very suspicious way. For them, the situation is fifty-fifty. Could be bad, Could be good. But deep down, they feel that whatever happens, they're on their own. And that fills them with fear. Yeah, there are those people. But there's a whole lot of people in Group number one. When they see those fourteen lights, they're looking at a miracle. And deep down, they feel that whatever's going to happen, there will be someone there to help them. And that fills them with hope. So what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you: Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences? - Graham Hess (Signs) If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. - Voltaire I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail. - C.A. Beard Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. Because they were holding on to something. Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam? Sam: There's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. - Mahatma Gandhi I shall tell you a great secret my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day. - Albert Camus

What hybernation has taught me so far

I've always told people that I can never live in the province. I've lived in the city ever since I can remember. I grew up in a crowded district of Manila called Tondo. There, the only private time you have is when you go to sleep. Sleep is private because that is the only time your consciousness is separate from everything else. In our neighborhood, houses were divided only by walls. The walls themselves don't seem to provide much seclusion to each family in the area. Whenever Tiyang Delma would engage in a heated argument with his sons, all of us living nearby would know. Even if you tone down your voice, you'd make an impression to the neighbors that something's wrong, one way or the other. Those living near by would hear it when you slam the door, throw a book, stomp your feet. Perhaps this is why the people in our part of the city grow up to be so loud: there is no use in toning down. There is no use in hiding your anger under a soft voice. People will find out eventually. When you're mad, you should might as well express rage at the fullness of tone. Might as well fuel your words with intensiveness. Why bother hiding behind the suppression of whisper?

I have become accustomed to the city: the dirty air from cars, the noise, the lives of people happening in front of me. I have come to realize that when I say that I can't live in the province, I am expressing the fear I have of own thoughts. In the place where I grew up, there is always something else to think about. There is always something to capture my attention. Something louder than what I have to say. I've been trying to isolate myself from the noise the past couple of days, and what it has done so far is to push to my consciousness reflections.

I have cut the time I spent in the internet and avoided networking and and messenger sites. The past few days that I have done so felt like moving into a province. Before, when I open my computer in the morning, the first thing I would do is to look at my Twitter and Face book accounts. And already, it's the lives of people starts flashing in front of me. What they're doing, how they feel, what interests them. Sure the status messages flashing in feeds are just projections, but isn't it that the same is true with everything we know about the people around us? Aren't they all projections? To cut myself from the virtual world is like withdrawing from the addiction of living in the denseness of the city. You are cut off. As the metropolitan noise fades slowly, your thoughts start to become louder. At first, it was frightening: my own thoughts. My desires. My worries. I can't remember when I last heard it talk to me so loudly and unfazed. And what is more bothering is how it is so unfamiliar.