"Pampanga politics looked hopeless at the beginning of the year when the fight for the governorship loomed as an exclusive match between two well-funded GMA allies—Mark Lapid and Baby Pineda. But the entry of a third figure in the person of the Catholic priest Fr. Eddie Panlilio has changed the whole picture. The charismatic cleric is running on the assumption that the only antidote to cash is conscience. I would have argued that reason is. But given the political realities of Pampanga today, perhaps he is right." -Randy David (Public Lives, PDI, May 6, '07)

randy david, a man greatly influenced by the writings of nietzsche, felt it needed to actually admit that among ed is right- that the only antidote to cash is conscience. nietzsche was a philospher who proposed that man should not be influenced by any other man or being. to be a nietzschean is to be a non-nietzschean at the same time because to be nietzschean is to be influenced by another man's ideas. moving on, nietzsche also goes against dogmatism. any statement made should be subject to scrutiny no matter who said it. i agree with the latter, but not with the first. anyway, what connection does this have with the paragraph i quoted above? some philosophers claim that conscience is brought about not by God but by society, the real dictator of what is good and what is bad. i beg to disagree, though, because as ravi zacharias said, some people regard cannibalism as moral, some people think that having several wives is okay, so from these examples we see that people's perception of what is moral varies so widely that one cannot just agree that universal peace can be achieved if the universal law is made by man and man alone. so, God enters the picture. in our second long exam in social science 2, we were asked to review the article of erich fromm, "the concept of God" where the author described that God may be merely an "x" factor and not a transcendental being. the "x" factor that helps alleviate people from the hardships that they are going through, the "x" factor that acts as a cohesive that helps promote peace and ensures that people will do what is right. my problem with his analysis, as well as with Durkheim's and Marx's, is that although what they said about God is true, that the concept of God helps people be more passive about the hardships they are going through, that it teaches people to be submissive to authority, that it leads people to do good even without anyone looking after them, is that they are reducing God to a mere "x" that is man made, nothing more. thing is, if something can cause such change, if a mere concept can make people act in a way that no other concept, thing, or man can, then isn't it proof that the "x" factor is not really an "x" factor but actually a transcendental being? why reduce it to merely a concept when it is much, much more than a concept? thing is, people want so much to prove that they can make it on their own, that they can set their own rules and they'll be ok, but, reality is, it cannot be done.