. Worth More Than A Sparrow .

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chyekeong
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Inspiration: my God.
Layout: raindrops25

Monday, October 31, 2005

Hmm...I could use me one pair of that!

Watched "Doom" with Aud and HS. Quite a dumb show, if you ask me. Movies spawned from video games are not knowned to be blockbusters.

Somebody please watch a 9pm sneak preview of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" with me!! >_<

{/2:50 PM}

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Not again

Oh man, she's back to haunt my dreams.

{/9:13 AM}

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

I dreamt about school yesterday night.

It was a pretty nice dream.

Dreamt of ZhiWei and his 'Chess Club Intellectual' to 'Canoeing Champion' transformation. Dreamt of TingShu being bitched by Ms Chua during Math lesson. Dreamt of Evan breaking flasks and test tubes in Chem prac and looking sheepish. Dreamt of LinJin and her half-hour re-arrange-my-hair toilet breaks, and other general crazy nonsense. Dreamt of copying SuHui's notes frantically before Bio tutorial. Dreamt of Liz strolling into Physics prac half hour late without breaking a sweat. Dreamt of TzeSiang and his steady, down-to-earth character. Dreamt of Serene dozing off in Physics tutorial.

Dreamt of Captain's ball and ZhiWei being tickled to death. Dreamt of the pre-A'levels badminton and table tennis craze. Dreamt of Thursday morning breakfast. Dreamt of skipping Math tutorial together.

My class rocked. Love them!

{/10:08 AM}

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

From STI, 25 Oct 05

No proselytising allowed in schools

A RECENT Insight article ('Say aaah... men'; ST, Oct 15) discussed the issue of proselytising.

Any form of proselytising to students is strictly not allowed in our schools, including both government and mission schools. Schools will take action against any teacher found to have engaged in proselytising.

The article cited the case of a National Junior College physics lecturer who invited his class to a Christmas party and prayed over them, and who attached Christian sayings to his lecture notes. The principal has warned the lecturer and counselled him. The lecturer is remorseful about his actions.

If parents have any concerns regarding any action involving their children being encouraged to join a religion other than their own, I encourage them to approach the school.

Ms Geraldine Chay Mei Fong ('Not true that all schools are secular'; ST, Oct 14) pointed out that religious values are imparted in mission schools. She supported this practice, and felt that parents who want a secular education for their children should send them to government schools.

Mission schools follow clear rules. While they can conduct prayers, religious classes and chapel services or mass, these must be optional. They cannot compel any student to participate in any religious activity against the student's wish.

Students are allowed to withdraw from any such activity if they are uncomfortable with participating in it, or if requested by their parents.

Further, attendance at any such activity cannot be a condition for students to be admitted to the school. The time used for these activities must also be in addition to that required for the schools to cover the subjects in the regular Ministry of Education curriculum.

It is in school that children of different backgrounds build bonds and develop shared aspirations as Singaporeans. We encourage parents and schools to work together to ensure that we sustain the strong social cohesion that we have built so far.

Wong Siew Hoong
Director of Schools
Ministry of Education

Wow. How stupid can people get? We're talking about Junior College students here, not kindergarden kids! Here's a suggestion - don't attend a Christmas Party if you are not Christian. And, move your butt elsewhere if you don't want to be prayed over. QED.

Religious equality in Singapore is a farce. Promoting purely atheistic thoughts in schools is NOT equality in my book. The Singapore idea of promoting peace between the different religions is by banning all religious arguments and as little contact as possible.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. 95% of the non-christians I've met are incapable of even formulating a simple argument as to why they don't believe, or why they believe in what they believe. All they have to offer is "My parents were Buddists, hence so am I!". Heck, they don't even understand their own religion, much less defend it. Atheists are even worse:

ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF BELIEF

If God exists, then I should believe in Him.
I don't believe in God.
Therefore, God doesn't exist.

PARENTAL ARGUMENT

My mommy and daddy told me that God doesn't exist.
Therefore, God doesn't exist.

ARGUMENT FROM SHEER WILL

I DON'T believe in God! I DON'T believe in God! I don't I don't I don't I DON'T believe in God!
Therefore, God doesn't exist.

That about sums it all.

----

I had actually written the above in an angrier manner, but stupid Firefox hanged before I could publish it. Amen, God rocks! You guys are spared from my more "colourful" language by the Hand of God. *chuckles*

I hereby challenge ANY atheist to last even 10 minutes in a Creation vs Evolution debate with me. Bring it.

{/11:10 AM}

Flight Plan was an okay show. Somewhat draggy in the beginning, lots of loopholes in the plot, but the acting was quite good. I watched it with a girl 5 years my junior. No, I'm not a pedophile, however it seems.

Doc's appointment later. I HATE it.

I just want my holidays.

Next post shall be "99 things CK wants for Christmas". Stay tuned!

{/9:25 AM}

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

I like how I can just log on to MSN for 5 minutes and grab a date for dinner =)

The worse side of me has been complaining lately about the lack of my regular dosage of MSN Minesweeper. The better side of me knows that this is a good sign, because it means dear Fel is busy studying and thus has no time to come online to indulge me in a sparring of luck and wits over the minesweeper board. Study hard, kiddo!

It seems as if my praying list keeps getting longer and longer while it's still 24hrs per day. A lot of people to pray for, and so little time. Recently I had my first experience of falling asleep halfway while praying at night. Rats! AND I have become increasingly forgetful, frequently forgetting this person or that. Sorry folks, but I'm trying!

Time is getting shorter in other respects as well. Always so many things to do, but no time. Although, in truth, it is also partly due to the fact that I seemed to have become more lethargic and apathatic these few days, not wanting to care so much, and just plain lazy to make the first moves/make plans/date people.

Sometimes I wish God would just finally decide to end all the religious arguments by appearing once and for all. Sometimes I am just tempted to challenge all those skeptics and agnostics to a display of Power, a la Elijah vs the prophets of Baal and Asherah at Mount Carmel. O, how awesome it would be! Incidently I quite like that chapter. Nice distraction to the boring listing of Kings.

"Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. "O Baal, answer us!" they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or travelling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened."" - 1 Kings 18: 26-27

Somehow I think he must have been a great person to be around with. He surely has a sense of humour =)

Christmas is coming!

{/3:33 PM}

Thursday, October 13, 2005

From the mouth of C.S. Lewis

"The third enemy is fear. War threatens us with death and pain. No man - and specially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane - need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things, but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. We think of the streets of Warsaw and contrast the deaths there suffered with an abstraction called Life. But there is no question of death or life for any of us, only a question of this death or of that - of a machine gun bullet now or a cancer forty years later. What does war do to death? It certainly does not make it more frequent; 100 percent of us die, and the percentage cannot be increased. It puts several deaths earlier, but I hardly suppose that that is what we fear. Certainly when the moment comes, it will make little difference how many years we have behind us. Does it invrease our chances of a painful death? I doubt it. As far as I can find out, what we call natural death is usually preceded by suffering, and a battlefield is one of the very few places where onoe has a resonable prospect of dying with no pain at all. Does it decrease our chances of dying at peace with God? I cannot believe it. If active service does not persuade a man to prepare for death, what conceivable concatenation of circumstances would? Yet war dies do something to death. It forces us to remember it. The only reason why the cancer at sixty or the paralysis at seventy-five do not bother us is that we forget them. War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centred in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realise it. Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon." -- C.S. Lewis, exerpt from The Weight of Glory

The more of C.S.L I read, the more I am impressed. I find the above to fit in nicely with not just war, but all the things that we see happening around us right now - earthquakes, hurricanes, suicide bombers and terrorists running rampant. Of course, I still wish he would have wrote with less flair, in terms of the language [parden my ineptitude in the finer points of literature]. Surely his books will become an easier read then. Yet, struggling to understand a particular paragraph can be quite challenging and invigorating at times. It just goes to show that C.S.L is NOT for the casual reader. Definately not your bedtime story.

But, darn are his books expensive!!

{/3:38 PM}

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

God Did Not Create Evil, Cold or Darkness

University Classroom Setting...

"LET ME EXPLAIN THE problem science has with Jesus Christ," The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand. "You're a Christian, aren't you, son?"

"Yes, sir."

"So you believe in God?"

"Absolutely."

"Is God good?"

"Sure! God's good."

"Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?"

"Yes."

"Are you good or evil?"

"The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Ahh! THE BIBLE!" He considers for a moment. "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help them? Would you try?"

"Yes sir, I would."

"So you're good...!"

"I wouldn't say that."

"Why not say that? You would help a sick and maimed person if you could... in fact most of us would if we could... God doesn't." [No answer.]

"He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?"

[No answer]

The elderly man is sympathetic. "No, you can't, can you?" He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones. "Let's start again, son."

"Is God good?"

"Er... Yes."

"Is Satan good?"

"No."

"Where does Satan come from?"

The student falters. "From... God..."

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he?" The elderly man runs his bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking, student audience. "I think we're going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen." He turns back to the Christian. "Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?"

"Yes, sir."

"Evil's everywhere, isn't it? Did God make everything?"

"Yes."

"Who created evil?

[No answer]

"Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness. All those terrible things - do they exist in this world? "

The student squirms on his feet. "Yes."

"Who created them? "

[No answer]

The professor suddenly shouts at his student. "WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!"The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the Christian's face. In a still small voice: "God created all evil, didn't He, son?"

[No answer]

The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther. The class is mesmerized.

"Tell me," he continues, "How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?" The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world. "All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn't it, young man?"

[No answer]

"Don't you see it all over the place? Huh?" Pause.

"Don't you?" The professor leans into the student's face again and whispers, "Is God good?"

[No answer]

"Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?"

The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor. I do."

The old man shakes his head sadly. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you seen Him? "

"No, sir. I've never seen Him."

"Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?"

"No, sir. I have not."

"Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelled your Jesus... in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?"

[No answer]

"Answer me, please."

"No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't."

"You're AFRAID... you haven't?"

"No, sir."

"Yet you still believe in him?"

"...yes..."

"That takes FAITH!" The professor smiles sagely at the underling. "According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?"

[The student doesn't answer]

"Sit down, please."

The Christian sits...defeated.

Another Christian raises his hand. "Professor, may I address the class?"

The professor turns and smiles. "Ah, another Christian in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering."

The Christian looks around the room. "Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you if that's okay. Is there such thing as heat?"

"Yes," the professor replies, frowning. "There's heat."

"Is there such a thing as cold?"

"Yes, son, there's cold too."

"No, sir, there isn't."

The professor's grin freezes.

The room suddenly goes very cold. The second Christian continues. "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'.

We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458 -- You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat.

We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy.

Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it." Silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.

"Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?" "That's a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn't darkness? What are you getting at...?"

"So you say there is such a thing as darkness?"

"Yes..."

"You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, Darkness isn't.

If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you...give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?"

Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him. This will indeed be a good semester. "Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?"

"Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error...."

The professor goes toxic. "Flawed...? How dare you...!""

"Sir, may I explain what I mean?"

The class is all ears.

"Explain... oh, explain..." The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability itself. He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.

"You are working on the premise of duality," the Christian explains; "that for example there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure.

Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing.

Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it."

The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbor who has been reading it. "Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids you can buy, professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?"

"Of course there is, now look..."

"Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?" The Christian pauses.

"Isn't evil the absence of good?"

The professor's face has turned an alarming color. He is so angry he is temporarily speechless.

The Christian continues. "If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil. What is that work God is accomplishing?

The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil."

The professor bridles. "As a philosophical scientist, I don't view this matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation because God is not observable."

"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian replies. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor. Do you believethat we have evolved from a monkey?"

"If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do."

"Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?" The professor makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student a silent, stony stare.

"Professor. All previous attempts to explain how the process works have failed. Since no-one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?"

"I'll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion. Now, have you quite finished?" the professor hisses.

"So you don't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous?"

"I believe in what is - that's observable science!"

"Ahh! SCIENCE!" the student's face splits into a grin. "Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. What you call "science" too is a premise which is flawed..."

"SCIENCE IS FLAWED..?" the professor splutters. The class is in uproar.

The Christian remains standing until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?" The professor wisely keeps silent.

The Christian looks around the room. "Sir, the basic law of physics says matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and yet you in spite of that believe in "spontaneous generation" of the entire physical universe! Spontaneous generation of vermin was disproved centuries ago.

Talk about straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel! Sir, biogenesis is "observable science" as you say--life has only been observed to come from other life of like kind--and yet you apparently still believe that that is exactly what happened--in spite of science--that life somehow came from non-life. "

Young man, the professor began tersely, I believe that science will eventually....

"That science will eventually prove that matter can be created, that life can come from non-life" interrupted the young Christian? Sir, that's not science--that's Faith! What you believe is the exact opposite of "observable science"!Your faith is in what you are calling "science", my faith is in God who created "science".

Make no mistake, Professor, we're both operating from faith."

There follows a long pause as the Professor stares the young Christian down without a word.

"Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's mind?" The class breaks out in laughter. The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's mind... felt the professor's mind, touched or smelled the professor's mind?"

No one appears to have done so. The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no-one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's mind whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable protocol and science, I DECLARE that the professor has no mind." The class is in chaos. The Christian sits... Because that is what a chair is for, and begins filling out a drop slip.

(source: unknown)

{/9:16 AM}