Dalai Lama on Science

This is an article written by the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and published in New York Times on 12 November 2005, entitled "Our Faith in Science". Strange title, considering who the author is.

Our Faith in Science
By TENZIN GYATSO
Washington

SCIENCE has always fascinated me. As a child in Tibet, I was keenly curious about how things worked. When I got a toy I would play with it a bit, then take it apart to see how it was put together. As I became older, I applied the same scrutiny to a movie projector and an antique automobile.

At one point I became particularly intrigued by an old telescope, with which I would study the heavens. One night while looking at the moon I realized that there were shadows on its surface. I corralled my two main tutors to show them, because this was contrary to the ancient version of cosmology I had been taught, which held that the moon was a heavenly body that emitted its own light.

But through my telescope the moon was clearly just a barren rock, pocked with craters. If the author of that fourth-century treatise were writing today, I'm sure he would write the chapter on cosmology differently.

If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.

For many years now, on my own and through the Mind and Life Institute, which I helped found, I have had the opportunity to meet with scientists to discuss their work. World-class scientists have generously coached me in subatomic physics, cosmology, psychology, biology.

It is our discussions of neuroscience, however, that have proved particularly important. From these exchanges a vigorous research initiative has emerged, a collaboration between monks and neuroscientists, to explore how meditation might alter brain function.

The goal here is not to prove Buddhism right or wrong - or even to bring people to Buddhism - but rather to take these methods out of the traditional context, study their potential benefits, and share the findings with anyone who might find them helpful.
After all, if practices from my own tradition can be brought together with scientific methods, then we may be able to take another small step toward alleviating human suffering.

Already this collaboration has borne fruit. Dr. Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin, has published results from brain imaging studies of lamas meditating. He found that during meditation the regions of the brain thought to be related to happiness increase in activity. He also found that the longer a person has been a meditator, the greater the activity increase will be.

Other studies are under way. At Princeton University, Dr. Jonathan Cohen, a neuroscientist, is studying the effects of meditation on attention. At the University of California Medical School at San Francisco, Dr. Margaret Kemeny has been studying how meditation helps develop empathy in school teachers.

Whatever the results of this work, I am encouraged that it is taking place. You see, many people still consider science and religion to be in opposition. While I agree that certain religious concepts conflict with scientific facts and principles, I also feel that people from both worlds can have an intelligent discussion, one that has the power ultimately to generate a deeper understanding of challenges we face together in our interconnected world.

One of my first teachers of science was the German physicist Carl von Weizsäcker, who had been an apprentice to the quantum theorist Werner Heisenberg. Dr. Weizsäcker was kind enough to give me some formal tutorials on scientific topics. (I confess that while listening to him I would feel I could grasp the intricacies of the full argument, but when the sessions were over there was often not a great deal of his explanation left behind.)

What impressed me most deeply was how Dr. Weizsäcker worried about both the philosophical implications of quantum physics and the ethical consequences of science generally. He felt that science could benefit from exploring issues usually left to the humanities.

I believe that we must find a way to bring ethical considerations to bear upon the direction of scientific development, especially in the life sciences. By invoking fundamental ethical principles, I am not advocating a fusion of religious ethics and scientific inquiry.

Rather, I am speaking of what I call "secular ethics," which embrace the principles we share as human beings: compassion, tolerance, consideration of others, the responsible use of knowledge and power. These principles transcend the barriers between religious believers and non-believers; they belong not to one faith, but to all faiths.

Today, our knowledge of the human brain and body at the cellular and genetic level has reached a new level of sophistication. Advances in genetic manipulation, for example, mean scientists can create new genetic entities - like hybrid animal and plant species - whose long-term consequences are unknown.

Sometimes when scientists concentrate on their own narrow fields, their keen focus obscures the larger effect their work might have. In my conversations with scientists I try to remind them of the larger goal behind what they do in their daily work.

This is more important than ever. It is all too evident that our moral thinking simply has not been able to keep pace with the speed of scientific advancement. Yet the ramifications of this progress are such that it is no longer adequate to say that the choice of what to do with this knowledge should be left in the hands of individuals.

This is a point I intend to make when I speak at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience today in Washington. I will suggest that how science relates to wider humanity is no longer of academic interest alone. This question must assume a sense of urgency for all those who are concerned about the fate of human existence.

A deeper dialogue between neuroscience and society - indeed between all scientific fields and society - could help deepen our understanding of what it means to be human and our responsibilities for the natural world we share with other sentient beings.

Just as the world of business has been paying renewed attention to ethics, the world of science would benefit from more deeply considering the implications of its own work. Scientists should be more than merely technically adept; they should be mindful of their own motivation and the larger goal of what they do: the betterment of humanity.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author of "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality."

I was afraid to fail you, so I fail you

"I was afraid to fail you, so I fail you". It took me a while to understand this sentence. It means that the standard is so high and so exacting that I dare not to perform the task, fearing that it would not meet the standard. Since the task is not performed, I also failed.

But our Lord Jesus has taken upon himself the task of meeting God's high and exacting standard so that all we need is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we shall be saved (Acts 16:31).

Negative criticism is also needed

A friend once mentioned this to me, “We should not criticize other religions. We should just emphasize the positive points of our own religion.” When the banks sold the Lehman Brothers mini-bonds, they emphasize on the positive points of the product. Many people are unable to see the short coming of the products by just looking at the positive points.
Religions are an equally complex subject. Not many people can see the positives and negatives of a religion, unless it is pointed out to them. When the pros and cons are listed, then a person is in a better position to make sound judgment.

Buddha's injured leg

This is an English summary of my earlier post, for the benefit of those who cannot read Chinese.
This is a story about Buddha, which is meant to proof that the Law of Cause and Effect is the fairest and most impartial in the Universe. It is so powerful, that even Buddha is subject to it.
One day, Buddha injured his leg. His disciples were shocked. Buddha has already attain Enlightenment, why would he be injured? Buddha explained that in his past life, he injured the foot of his friend. This is his retribution.
When I read this story, I felt that Buddha was pulling a fast one. Having told everyone he has attained Enlightenment and became a Buddha, but now he was hurt, like an ordinary guy. So he came up with a story about some incidents in his past life, which nobody can be prove whether it is true or not. Since he is Buddha, all his disciples accept what he said by faith.

佛陀的腳傷

This is a story about Buddha, which is meant to proof that the Law of Cause and Effect (因果律) is the fairest and most impartial in the Universe (是宇宙間最公正最無私).

This version is from 因果律的公正性[佛網Life論壇]
QUOTE
就連佛陀也是一樣不能違背因果的法則，有一天佛陀不小心被一根木棍傷到腳了，眾弟子在傷心之餘不禁納悶著，佛陀不是有無邊的神通嗎？佛陀不是已經成佛了嗎？怎麼還會輕易的被一根木棍所傷呢？

佛陀微笑的安慰弟子說，他雖然已經成佛了，但身體還是四大和合的肉身，自然和一般眾生一樣，有生老病死的現象，況且儘管神通再大還是敵不過業力的，因此佛陀就為他們解釋腳傷的因緣。

原來在久遠的宿世以前，佛陀為了勸他的一個朋友，而朋友不聽，因此兩個人就吵了起來，因為那是攸關朋友生命安全的事，儘管佛陀當時如何的力勸，朋友總是不聽，因此佛陀在焦急時，就用木棍打傷了他朋友的腳，就因為曾經有傷害人家腳的宿世業力，所以等到機緣成熟，儘管相隔那麼長遠的時間，還是逃不了傷腳的果報。
UNQUOTE

Another version from 居士學佛100問（做一個合格和如法的佛門弟子）
QUOTE
是一個晴朗的早晨，竹林精舍的比丘們剛從城裏乞食回來，各人在寮房裏整理衣物，忽然感到房子和地面無端地搖動起來。接著，聽到外面有人傳說佛陀受傷。大家不由一怔，急忙放下工作，相繼趕到佛陀的住處。
佛陀端坐在房中，傷口在腳上，阿難尊者正細心地為他敷藥包紮，一根沾有鮮血的木棍橫臥在地上。大家都明白，一定是被木棍所傷。可是就不明白，為什麼一支木棍能傷及佛陀的身體，佛陀不是有無邊的神通法力嗎？
佛陀的腳傷並不輕，眾弟子都守侍在旁邊，有不少人竟躲在人後啜泣。佛陀看著，內心很感動，微笑著安慰他們道：「大家不必擔憂，些微的創傷很快就會好的。」
「佛陀金剛不壞的身體，為什麼一根木棍能傷害呢？」有幾個弟子齊聲問道。
「這就是業緣。凡是地、水、火、風四大和合的眾生，都有這樣的苦受。說起來已經是很多世前的事了……」
說到這裏，阿闍世王也聞訊帶了名醫耆婆趕到，國王滿面焦急，邊跑邊喘來至佛陀面前。
「佛陀！傷勢可要緊嗎？」阿闍世王的聲音在顫抖，顯然，他的內心非常焦急。
「沒什麼，你放心！」佛陀笑答道，一邊叫他坐下，繼續說道：「當時我是個商人，有一次和朋友合夥渡海到外埠經商，我們的計畫很周到，也進行得很順利，所以不多久就賺得一大筆錢。歸途中，我們的船停靠在一處港口，那是個很繁華都市。一上岸，就忘記回家，尤其是那兒的美女，我的朋友被迷惑得六神無主。這時，有個好心的船夫告訴我們，再不離開此地，危險就要降身了。原因是，這個地方每年都要遭受海嘯的襲擊。海嘯的季節就將到來，不走，將會人財兩亡。我的朋友全無動於衷，我勸他，嚇他都沒有用。他完全失去了理智，一味迷戀那城市和女人。船隻有一隻，我不能忘卻道義，拋棄他，獨自先走。一天晚上，我們為此爭吵起來。在生命存亡的關頭，我急昏了，怒火上升，顧不了許多，抓起身邊的木棍向他揮打過去，他的腳被我打傷。
「現在，你們不難知道我受傷的理由了吧？如你們說，佛陀還會受傷嗎？應該知道，不會受傷的，那是佛陀的法身和報身。佛陀的應身105和眾生一樣，有生老病死。佛陀的神通法力雖然不可思議，但敵不過業力。種如是因，就應承受如是果，佛陀也不能違背因果法則。
「四大假合的肉身，本來就不真實，成住壞空在所必然。一切事物的法性原是這樣，順應法性才能稱佛陀。
「不錯，我已經證得真如法性成為佛陀，但現在我也是人，我由父母生養，和你們一樣具有人相。佛陀的應身除了三十二相八十種好，和眾生並沒有兩樣，沒有什麼玄奧。」
大家聽佛陀這麼一說，才瞭解業力因果最勝的道理。（摘自《佛教故事選集》第八輯）
UNQUOTE

But unfortunately, when I read this, I felt that Buddha was pulling a fast one. Having told everyone he has 金剛不壞的身體, and now he is hurt. So he came up with a story which cannot be proven. Since he is Buddha, all his disciples accept what he said by faith.

The Christian's weapon

The Christian's only weapon for offensive attack is the Word of God, which is Truth and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephesians 6:17).

Right belief

Right belief leads to right values. Right values lead to right judgment. Right judgment leads to right action. Right action leads to right results. Right results produces assurance in the right belief.

In Christ, there is always employment

In Christ, there is always employment. We are called to be fishermen and ambassadors. You can even do this as a part-time job.
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. (Matthew 4:19 KJV)
And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. (Mark 1:17 KJV)
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20 KJV)

Our jobs are prepared in advance for us.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10 KJV)

Our pay is assured.
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19 KJV)

We do not have to pay any tax.
He saith, Yes. And when he was come into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free. (Matthew 17:25-26 KJV)

Hope

A boy (about age 12) once went about comparing the size of his palm with others. Apparently his palm is always bigger than his friends'. Then he came to me. We compared, and my hand is naturally bigger than him. He was like slightly disappointed, and then he brightened up and said to me, "Never mind. I will grow." He has hope.

Why Are We Saved By Faith?

Charles Spurgeon had a passage in chapter 10 of his book “All of Grace” to answer why faith is chosen as a vehicle of salvation which I quote below:

Why is faith selected as the channel of salvation? No doubt this inquiry is often made. "By grace are ye saved through faith," is assuredly the doctrine of Holy Scripture, and the ordinance of God; but why is it so? Why is faith selected rather than hope, or love, or patience?

It becomes us to be modest in answering such a question, for God's ways are not always to be understood; nor are we allowed presumptuously to question them. Humbly we would reply that, as far as we can tell, faith has been selected as the channel of grace, because there is a natural adaptation in faith to be used as the receiver. Suppose that I am about to give a poor man an alms: I put it into his hand—why? Well, it would hardly be fitting to put it into his ear, or to lay it upon his foot; the hand seems made on purpose to receive. So, in our mental frame, faith is created on purpose to be a receiver: it is the hand of the man, and there is a fitness in receiving grace by its means.

Do let me put this very plainly. Faith which receives Christ is as simple an act as when your child receives an apple from you, because you hold it out and promise to give him the apple if he comes for it. The belief and the receiving relate only to an apple; but they make up precisely the same act as the faith which deals with eternal salvation. What the child's hand is to the apple, that your faith is to the perfect salvation of Christ. The child's hand does not make the apple, nor improve the apple, nor deserve the apple; it only takes it; and faith is chosen by God to be the receiver of salvation, because it does not pretend to create salvation, nor to help in it, but it is content humbly to receive it. "Faith is the tongue that begs pardon, the hand which receives it, and the eye which sees it; but it is not the price which buys it." Faith never makes herself her own plea, she rests all her argument upon the blood of Christ. She becomes a good servant to bring the riches of the Lord Jesus to the soul, because she acknowledges whence she drew them, and owns that grace alone entrusted her with them.

Faith, again, is doubtless selected because it gives all the glory to God. It is of faith that it might be by grace, and it is of grace that there might be no boasting; for God cannot endure pride. "The proud he knoweth afar off," and He has no wish to come nearer to them. He will not give salvation in a way which will suggest or foster pride. Paul saith, "Not of works, lest any man should boast." Now, faith excludes all boasting. The hand which receives charity does not say, "I am to be thanked for accepting the gift"; that would be absurd. When the hand conveys bread to the mouth it does not say to the body, "Thank me; for I feed you." It is a very simple thing that the hand does though a very necessary thing; and it never arrogates glory to itself for what it does. So God has selected faith to receive the unspeakable gift of His grace, because it cannot take to itself any credit, but must adore the gracious God who is the giver of all good. Faith sets the crown upon the right head, and therefore the Lord Jesus was wont to put the crown upon the head of faith, saying, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."

Next, God selects faith as the channel of salvation because it is a sure method, linking man with God. When man confides in God, there is a point of union between them, and that union guarantees blessing. Faith saves us because it makes us cling to God, and so brings us into connection with Him. I have often used the following illustration, but I must repeat it, because I cannot think of a better. I am told that years ago a boat was upset above the falls of Niagara, and two men were being carried down the current, when persons on the shore managed to float a rope out to them, which rope was seized by them both. One of them held fast to it and was safely drawn to the bank; but the other, seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely let go the rope and clung to the log, for it was the bigger thing of the two, and apparently better to cling to. Alas! the log with the man on it went right over the vast abyss, because there was no union between the log and the shore. The size of the log was no benefit to him who grasped it; it needed a connection with the shore to produce safety. So when a man trusts to his works, or to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he will not be saved, because there is no junction between him and Christ; but faith, though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hands of the great God on the shore side; infinite power pulls in the connecting line, and thus draws the man from destruction. Oh the blessedness of faith, because it unites us to God!

Faith is chosen again, because it touches the springs of action. Even in common things faith of a certain sort lies at the root of all. I wonder whether I shall be wrong if I say that we never do anything except through faith of some sort. If I walk across my study it is because I believe my legs will carry me. A man eats because he believes in the necessity of food; he goes to business because he believes in the value of money; he accepts a check because he believes that the bank will honor it. Columbus discovered America because he believed that there was another continent beyond the ocean; and the Pilgrim Fathers colonized it because they believed that God would be with them on those rocky shores. Most grand deeds have been born of faith; for good or for evil, faith works wonders by the man in whom it dwells. Faith in its natural form is an all-prevailing force, which enters into all manner of human actions. Possibly he who derides faith in God is the man who in an evil form has the most of faith; indeed, he usually falls into a credulity which would be ridiculous, if it were not disgraceful. God gives salvation to faith, because by creating faith in us He thus touches the real mainspring of our emotions and actions. He has, so to speak, taken possession of the battery and now He can send the sacred current to every part of our nature. When we believe in Christ, and the heart has come into the possession of God, then we are saved from sin, and are moved toward repentance, holiness, zeal, prayer, consecration, and every other gracious thing. "What oil is to the wheels, what weights are to a clock, what wings are to a bird, what sails are to a ship, that faith is to all holy duties and services." Have faith, and all other graces will follow and continue to hold their course.

Faith, again, has the power of working by love; it influences the affections toward God, and draws the heart after the best things. He that believes in God will beyond all question love God. Faith is an act of the understanding; but it also proceeds from the heart. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness"; and hence God gives salvation to faith because it resides next door to the affections, and is near akin to love; and love is the parent and the nurse of every holy feeling and act. Love to God is obedience, love to God is holiness. To love God and to love man is to be conformed to the image of Christ; and this is salvation.

Moreover, faith creates peace and joy; he that hath it rests, and is tranquil, is glad and joyous, and this is a preparation for heaven. God gives all heavenly gifts to faith, for this reason among others, that faith worketh in us the life and spirit which are to be eternally manifested in th e upper and better world. Faith furnishes us with armor for this life, and education for the life to come. It enables a man both to live and to die without fear; it prepares both for action and for suffering; and hence the Lord selects it as a most convenient medium for conveying grace to us, and thereby securing us for glory.

Certainly faith does for us what nothing else can do; it gives us joy and peace, and causes us to enter into rest. Why do men attempt to gain salvation by other means? An old preacher says, "A silly servant who is bidden to open a door, sets his shoulder to it and pushes with all his might ; but the door stirs not, and he cannot enter, use what strength he may. Another comes with a key, and easily unlocks the door, and enters right readily. Those who would be saved by works are pushing at heaven's gate without result; but faith is the key which opens the gate at once." Reader, will you not use that key? The Lord commands you to believe in His dear Son, therefore you may do so; and doing so you shall live. Is not this the promise of the gospel, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved"? (Mark 16:16). What can be your objection to a way of salvation which commends itself to the mercy and the wisdom of our gracious God?

The wicked live by faith

It is written, "The just shall live by faith (Habbakuk 2:4, Romans 1:7, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38)".
The wicked also live by faith. We need faith for everything because we are not all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omniscience) and all-present (omnipresent). We have no time to prove everything which we have not seen or have not felt with any of our senses. We also cannot be proving all the time whether our senses are deceiving us. Thus everybody lives by faith. The just and the wicked. But the wicked live by faith in everything other than the true and living God. Therefore God do not consider the wicked as "alive" (Matthew 8:22, Luke 9:60). They are alive only in our eyes, which why the Bible never says "The wicked shall live by faith".

Quotes About the Bible - 1

Found in the Gideons International Bible:
The HOLY BIBLE contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here Paradise is restored, heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed.
CHRIST is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labour, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

Patience or Approval?

Divorce is allowed in Moses’s Law (Deuteronomy 24:1). Because it is in the Law of Moses, the Jews reasoned that God approved divorce. But God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16). From the beginning God did not intend it to be that way, but for the hardness of men's heart, He wrote them this precept. (Matthew 19:8). God showed His great patience with men by regulating their sins, such as adultery (in polygamy and divorce laws), slavery and war in Moses’s Law.

So how are we to know what is approved of God, and what is allowed and regulated because of His great mercy and patience? We can look back at the Ten Commandments and how our Lord Jesus interpret them (Matthew 5:21-22, 5:27-28). You will soon realize how exacting the demands of God are and how impossible it is for you to fulfill the Law. And you will also realize how much you need a Saviour, or you will have to face the wrath of this God, when His mercy and patience end and His justice begin.

In Christ, salvation is free

Salvation is free. It has to be received as a gift of God (John 3:16, Romans 3:24-25, Romans 5:15-17, Ephesians 2:8, Revelations 21:6). You cannot buy it (Acts 8:20). You cannot work for it (Ephesians 2:9).

But nothing is free (PAP, Singapore's ruling party). When you got something free, it is because someone has paid the price for you. God has paid the price of your salvation with the blood of His Son. You are redeemed from your sins by His blood (Romans 3:25, 1 Corinthians 6:20, 1 Corinthians 7:23, Hebrews 9:12, 1 John 2:2).

Henceforth, you become the servants of righteousness (Romans 6:18). Other religions ask you to earn salvation by doing good works. Jesus Christ saved you to do good works (Ephesians 2:10).

What happens if you reject this gift? There will be no salvation for you, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which they can be saved (Acts 4:12, Hebrews 2:3, John 14:6, 1 Timothy 2:5).

In Christ, salvation is guaranteed

The minimum guarantee of any true Christian: eternal life in Heaven (Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9, Romans 10:13, Joel 2:32, Acts 2:21, 1 John 2:2). This is not a Lehman Brothers mini-bond guarantee. There are no small prints.

No other religion has offered this guarantee. No other religion can offer this guarantee legally and morally. They all teach you that a good man goes to Heaven and a wicked man goes to Hell. But what is "good"? What is the KPI (Key Performance Indicator)? How much "good" is needed? No religion state this clearly. Every good Human Resource Manager knows that performance is not exact science and how difficult it is to judge someone's performance. Those who do good works to earn merit to heaven just have to hope that their god or gods that he/she/it/they are a better or more perfect judge than the fallible Human Resource Manager.

I have asked a Muslim if he is going to Heaven when he dies. He replied, "Allah knows". He does not know. Nobody knows. Except the true Christian who believed in the Word of God.

Microsoft, Unix, fork and chopsticks

Microsoft Windows is like fork, more difficult to make, but easier to use. Unix is like chopsticks. Easier to make, but more difficult to use. Usually, you can only train one hand to use the chopsticks. Thus a right-handed person can only use his right hand to hold the chopsticks. given any two sticks, you can use them as a pair of chopsticks. But for the fork, you can use it with either hand. However, you cannot make you own fork easily.

What Fifty Said by Robert Frost

When I was young my teachers were the old.
I gave up fire for form till I was cold.
I suffered like a metal being cast.
I went to school to age to learn the past.

Now I am old my teachers are the young.
What can't be molded must be cracked and sprung.
I strain at lessons fit to start a suture.
I go to school to youth to learn the future.

Second Generation Christians

How do Second Generation Christians know if they are saved? Unlike those who were converted from non-Christian religions, where there is clear break from the past, Second Generation Christians are taught Bible truths from young. How do they know that the knowledge they have are not just knowledge in their heads, but are truly believed and acted upon? After all, even the demon believe in God (James 2:19).

Manna is supplied in the wilderness, but not in the Promised Land

And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; they did eat manna, until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan. (Exodus 16:35 KJV)

Manna is supplied in the wilderness, but not in the Promised Land. Miracles occur so that we know that God is God. Once we know, the miracles stopped.

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed. (John 20:29 KJV)

Even the demons believe there is only one God

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble (James 2:19). Many second generation Christians believe in Jesus because their parents told them. They went to church from young and their Sunday School teachers taught them that Jesus is the Son of God. But this knowledge is not enough. The Bible tells us that the demons also know that (Matthew 8:29). The key issue is that have you received Jesus as your personal Saviour? Is the Good News good news to you? Or is it just news, like those news you read in the newspaper?

This morning, Rev Eric Elmer preached that he was struck by James 2:19, and realised that he is no different from any demon. They knew what he knew. Unless Jesus is your Saviour, you will tremble at the Day of Judgement, like the demons.

Is the Gospel good news to you?

Gospel means "Good News". Is the Good News good news to you? Are you overjoyed when you heard the Gospel? Why? Many retirees invested their life savings in what they though was 100% capital guaranteed fund the Lehman Mini-bond. Now it is worthless and they lost all their money. Let say they were told, "We you give you back all your capital". Do you think they would be overjoyed? Are you like that when you heard the Gospel, or it has no impact on you. You just felt that you have got a new Religion. You do not really understand what you are saved from, how much you have received. Many Christians are like that. They are not overjoyed. They just got a new Religion.

The Great Disappointment

On this day 164 years ago (22nd October 1844), the followers of William Miller gathered in homes and churches eagerly awaiting the Second Coming of Christ. Thousands gathered in many locations outdoors to watch the sky to "meet the bridegroom." But Jesus did not appear to them, and the day became "The Great Disappointment" to the Millerites.

Miller established the year 1844 by taking Prophet Daniel's eighth chapter which speaks of 2,300 days. Miller took these days to stand for years, like the 490 years (the seventy "weeks" mentioned in Daniel 9:24). Then he subtracted the 490 years, which were "cut off" from the 2,300 years. It is left with 1810 years. It was assumed that Christ died early in 31 AD. With 3.5 years of Daniel's 70th week still to run, adding those 3.5 years to 31 AD brings us to late 34 AD. Then 1810 + 34 brings us to 1844. Other considerations placed the date in October 1844.

Miller never taught that Christ would return on 22nd October. Samuel S. Snow was the originator of the date of October 22, presenting the topic in the Boston Tabernacle on July 21, 1844. Then in August he presented his material at a camp meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire. After that the idea spread like wild fire. By October 22, as many as 50000 Millerites believed Christ was coming on that day. Many sold their goods or quit their jobs, not expecting to need them after October 22.

Miller never gave up his belief in the Second Coming of Christ; he died on December 20, 1849, still convinced that the Second Coming was imminent.

Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh. (Matthew 25:13)

Faith Needed for All Things

Faith is needed for everything in life, for religion, for science or even investment. When you read that an apple dropped on Isaac Newton's head and he discovered the Law of Gravity, you accept it by faith, because most of us probably cannot understand the mathematics that he used to prove it.

When you got lots of money to invest, you went to DBS, that very reputable Singapore Bank. The relationship manager recommended DBS High Notes and told you that it is capital guaranteed. You buy it by faith, because it is DBS. And your faith in DBS let you down.

Since faith is so dangerous and yet we need it, we should try to mitigate the bad effects by asking a few questions. Like the DBS High Notes example, you could always ask who guaranteed the capital and how it was guaranteed.

Likewise in religion, do not just believe because someone preaches to you. Do not think that all religions cannot be proven because it is about after death, or about another dimension. This is not true. Like the DBS High Notes, you can ask some questions. Ask if there is something in the religion that when proven false, the whole religion will collapse. The preacher should be able to answer such questions. If not, do not believe this preacher. Go and ask another.

God and evil

This is how Epicurus argued about God and evil, "Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?"

We can present this problem from another angle. Either God is all wise or you are. If God is all wise, you will have to accept that He will eradicate evil in His own way at His own time, which is the best way, since He is the wisest. If you think that the current way is unsatisfactory and your way is better, then you are wiser than God.

And you got to prove it.

Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? Let him who argues with God give an answer. (Job 40:2 HCSB)

Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and no one is like Me. I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done, saying: My plan will take place, and I will do all My will. (Isaiah 46:9-10 HCSB)

Then I saw a great white throne and the one who is seated on it. Before his face both earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. Another scroll was opened too; this is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged on the basis of what was written in the scrolls about what they had done. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and the Grave gave up the dead that were in them, and people were judged by what they had done. Then Death and the Grave were thrown into the fiery lake. This, the fiery lake, is the second death. Then anyone whose name wasn’t found written in the scroll of life was thrown into the fiery lake. (Revelation 20:11-15 CEB)

Good times, bad times

You cannot really know a person, until you have been through good times and bad times with him. If the person can maintain his integrity in good times and bad, then he is truly a man of integrity. One person who was tested in wilderness and in prosperity was King David of Israel. When David was hunted by King Saul like a partridge in the mountains, he became so desperate and that he decided to take refuge with the enemy of Israel, Achish king of Gath (1 Samuel 27:1-2). When David became King of all Israel, he fell into the sin of adultery (2 Samuel 11:2-5) and murder (2 Samuel 11:15-17). So David failed both tests.

If David, the man after God's heart, the Ancestor of the Messiah can fail, we dare not trust our own integrity. It is by the grace of God that we are still preserved and we have no merit or works that we can boast of our own.

Judge threw out God suit

Read in the news on 17th October 2008 that a judge in Nebraska, Marlon Polk, has dismissed a lawsuit that was filed against God because the defendant has no address and legal papers cannot be served. The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers in September 2007.

Does the good judge think that his court has jurisdiction over God? Or anybody can sue anyone in Nebraska? Can Queen Elizabeth 2 of UK be sued in Nebraska? She has an address and legal papers can be served.

Contentment, you and Adam

If you were given the whole world, except for one tree, would you be very happy? I would be. Many people had tried to own the world. Alexander spent his whole life trying to conquer the world and he did not succeed. Genghis Khan also tried his luck, but failed. The British created the world's largest empire to date, which, at its peak under King George V in 1922, covered only 25% (36.6 million square km²) of the world's land.

One man was given this opportunity to own the whole world, except for one tree. A brand new world. A paradise. He was given more than what the British, the Mongols, the Romans, the Greeks ever got and dreamed of. But he was not satisfied. He coveted the one tree. For attempting to conquer that one more tree, he lost his paradise. That man was Adam.

Monetary Value of Services

Singapore's Government use money to value their services. They try to make sure that most services would pay for itself. There should be as little subsidy as possible. Welfare is a bad word. But there are many things that the Government get free. Air is free. (Environment maintenance is not.) Love and loyalty are not quantifiable. All these are distortions when we use money to value services.

Daily Bread

Copied from C. H Spurgeon's Daily Check Book:
October 15

Sustained by Feeding

As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me (John 6:57). We live by virtue of our union with the Son of God. As God-man Mediator, the Lord Jesus lives by the self-existent Father who has sent Him, and in the same manner we live by the Savior who has quickened us. He who is the source of our life is also the sustenance of it. Living is sustained by feeding. We must support the spiritual life by spiritual food, and that spiritual food is the Lord Jesus. Not His life, or death, or offices, or work, or word alone, but Himself, as including all these. On Jesus Himself we feed.

This is set forth to us in the Lord's Supper, but it is actually enjoyed by us when we meditate upon our Lord, believe in Him with appropriating faith, take Him into ourselves by love, and assimilate Him by the power of the inner life. We know what it is to feed on Jesus, but we cannot speak it or write it. Our wisest course is to practice it and to do so more and more. We are entreated to eat abundantly, and it will be to our infinite profit to do so when Jesus is our meat and our drink.

Lord, I thank Thee that this, which is a necessity of my new life, is also its greatest delight. So, I do at this hour feed on Thee.

Wrong beliefs leads to wrong solution

When Henry Paulson, the U.S. Treasury secretary, announced his plan for a $700 billion financial bailout, he opted for government purchases of toxic mortgage-backed securities. This is because of the Republican philosophy of minimum government intervention.

When Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister outlined a bold plan where four major British Banks were effectively put under government control with planned capital investments by the government, he is true to his Labour Party’s ideology of nationalization.

While neither nationalization nor privatization is always right, beliefs may cloud one’s vision and caused the obvious solution to be rejected.

Communism - how it may be revived

With the income gap between the rich and poor getting wider, could communism, the discredited ideology of mass struggle be revived? One possible way is to return to the fundamentals, i.e. return to Karl Marx. About 20 years ago at the Library in University of Essex, I read an article in a magazine, published, I think, by the British Communist Party. The author of this article argued that Soviet Union and China were not true communist countries. Rather, they were State Capitalist. So the democracies were Private Capitalist, exploiting their workers, Soviet Union and China were State Capitalist, exploiting their workers and without the rights associated with democracies. The workers in State Capitalist had a worse deal. I could not believe my eyes. In one stroke, the author exonerate communism from all its ill. So no communist state has been created yet, and communism has not been proven wrong. Following this line of argument to its logical conclusion, communism can be repackaged by stripping it of Lenin, Stalin and Mao, leaving only Marx and Engel, and we have the a revived communism - Fundamentalist Communism.

The Chronicle Review's take on current financial crisis

Found the following on The Chronicle Review. But I am not sure if their analysis is right or wrong.
From the issue dated October 17, 2008
The Real Great DepressionThe depression of 1929 is the wrong model for the current economic crisis
By SCOTT REYNOLDS NELSON

As a historian who works on the 19th century, I have been reading my newspaper with a considerable sense of dread. While many commentators on the recent mortgage and banking crisis have drawn parallels to the Great Depression of 1929, that comparison is not particularly apt. Two years ago, I began research on the Panic of 1873, an event of some interest to my colleagues in American business and labor history but probably unknown to everyone else. But as I turn the crank on the microfilm reader, I have been hearing weird echoes of recent events.

When commentators invoke 1929, I am dubious. According to most historians and economists, that depression had more to do with overlarge factory inventories, a stock-market crash, and Germany's inability to pay back war debts, which then led to continuing strain on British gold reserves. None of those factors is really an issue now. Contemporary industries have very sensitive controls for trimming production as consumption declines; our current stock-market dip followed bank problems that emerged more than a year ago; and there are no serious international problems with gold reserves, simply because banks no longer peg their lending to them.

In fact, the current economic woes look a lot like what my 96-year-old grandmother still calls "the real Great Depression." She pinched pennies in the 1930s, but she says that times were not nearly so bad as the depression her grandparents went through. That crash came in 1873 and lasted more than four years. It looks much more like our current crisis.

The problems had emerged around 1870, starting in Europe. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, formed in 1867, in the states unified by Prussia into the German empire, and in France, the emperors supported a flowering of new lending institutions that issued mortgages for municipal and residential construction, especially in the capitals of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris. Mortgages were easier to obtain than before, and a building boom commenced. Land values seemed to climb and climb; borrowers ravenously assumed more and more credit, using unbuilt or half-built houses as collateral. The most marvelous spots for sightseers in the three cities today are the magisterial buildings erected in the so-called founder period.

But the economic fundamentals were shaky. Wheat exporters from Russia and Central Europe faced a new international competitor who drastically undersold them. The 19th-century version of containers manufactured in China and bound for Wal-Mart consisted of produce from farmers in the American Midwest. They used grain elevators, conveyer belts, and massive steam ships to export trainloads of wheat to abroad. Britain, the biggest importer of wheat, shifted to the cheap stuff quite suddenly around 1871. By 1872 kerosene and manufactured food were rocketing out of America's heartland, undermining rapeseed, flour, and beef prices. The crash came in Central Europe in May 1873, as it became clear that the region's assumptions about continual economic growth were too optimistic. Europeans faced what they came to call the American Commercial Invasion. A new industrial superpower had arrived, one whose low costs threatened European trade and a European way of life.

As continental banks tumbled, British banks held back their capital, unsure of which institutions were most involved in the mortgage crisis. The cost to borrow money from another bank — the interbank lending rate — reached impossibly high rates. This banking crisis hit the United States in the fall of 1873. Railroad companies tumbled first. They had crafted complex financial instruments that promised a fixed return, though few understood the underlying object that was guaranteed to investors in case of default. (Answer: nothing). The bonds had sold well at first, but they had tumbled after 1871 as investors began to doubt their value, prices weakened, and many railroads took on short-term bank loans to continue laying track. Then, as short-term lending rates skyrocketed across the Atlantic in 1873, the railroads were in trouble. When the railroad financier Jay Cooke proved unable to pay off his debts, the stock market crashed in September, closing hundreds of banks over the next three years. The panic continued for more than four years in the United States and for nearly six years in Europe.

The long-term effects of the Panic of 1873 were perverse. For the largest manufacturing companies in the United States — those with guaranteed contracts and the ability to make rebate deals with the railroads — the Panic years were golden. Andrew Carnegie, Cyrus McCormick, and John D. Rockefeller had enough capital reserves to finance their own continuing growth. For smaller industrial firms that relied on seasonal demand and outside capital, the situation was dire. As capital reserves dried up, so did their industries. Carnegie and Rockefeller bought out their competitors at fire-sale prices. The Gilded Age in the United States, as far as industrial concentration was concerned, had begun.

As the panic deepened, ordinary Americans suffered terribly. A cigar maker named Samuel Gompers who was young in 1873 later recalled that with the panic, "economic organization crumbled with some primeval upheaval." Between 1873 and 1877, as many smaller factories and workshops shuttered their doors, tens of thousands of workers — many former Civil War soldiers — became transients. The terms "tramp" and "bum," both indirect references to former soldiers, became commonplace American terms. Relief rolls exploded in major cities, with 25-percent unemployment (100,000 workers) in New York City alone. Unemployed workers demonstrated in Boston, Chicago, and New York in the winter of 1873-74 demanding public work. In New York's Tompkins Square in 1874, police entered the crowd with clubs and beat up thousands of men and women. The most violent strikes in American history followed the panic, including by the secret labor group known as the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania's coal fields in 1875, when masked workmen exchanged gunfire with the "Coal and Iron Police," a private force commissioned by the state. A nationwide railroad strike followed in 1877, in which mobs destroyed railway hubs in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Cumberland, Md.

In Central and Eastern Europe, times were even harder. Many political analysts blamed the crisis on a combination of foreign banks and Jews. Nationalistic political leaders (or agents of the Russian czar) embraced a new, sophisticated brand of anti-Semitism that proved appealing to thousands who had lost their livelihoods in the panic. Anti-Jewish pogroms followed in the 1880s, particularly in Russia and Ukraine. Heartland communities large and small had found a scapegoat: aliens in their own midst.

The echoes of the past in the current problems with residential mortgages trouble me. Loans after about 2001 were issued to first-time homebuyers who signed up for adjustablerate mortgages they could likely never pay off, even in the best of times. Real-estate speculators, hoping to flip properties, overextended themselves, assuming that home prices would keep climbing. Those debts were wrapped in complex securities that mortgage companies and other entrepreneurial banks then sold to other banks; concerned about the stability of those securities, banks then bought a kind of insurance policy called a credit-derivative swap, which risk managers imagined would protect their investments. More than two million foreclosure filings — default notices, auction-sale notices, and bank repossessions — were reported in 2007. By then trillions of dollars were already invested in this credit-derivative market. Were those new financial instruments resilient enough to cover all the risk? (Answer: no.) As in 1873, a complex financial pyramid rested on a pinhead. Banks are hoarding cash. Banks that hoard cash do not make short-term loans. Businesses large and small now face a potential dearth of short-term credit to buy raw materials, ship their products, and keep goods on shelves.

If there are lessons from 1873, they are different from those of 1929. Most important, when banks fall on Wall Street, they stop all the traffic on Main Street — for a very long time. The protracted reconstruction of banks in the United States and Europe created widespread unemployment. Unions (previously illegal in much of the world) flourished but were then destroyed by corporate institutions that learned to operate on the edge of the law. In Europe, politicians found their scapegoats in Jews, on the fringes of the economy. (Americans, on the other hand, mostly blamed themselves; many began to embrace what would later be called fundamentalist religion.)

The post-panic winners, even after the bailout, might be those firms — financial and otherwise — that have substantial cash reserves. A widespread consolidation of industries may be on the horizon, along with a nationalistic response of high tariff barriers, a decline in international trade, and scapegoating of immigrant competitors for scarce jobs. The failure in July of the World Trade Organization talks begun in Doha seven years ago suggests a new wave of protectionism may be on the way.

In the end, the Panic of 1873 demonstrated that the center of gravity for the world's credit had shifted west — from Central Europe toward the United States. The current panic suggests a further shift — from the United States to China and India. Beyond that I would not hazard a guess. I still have microfilm to read.

Scott Reynolds Nelson is a professor of history at the College of William and Mary. Among his books is Steel Drivin' Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American legend (Oxford University Press, 2006).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Chronicle ReviewVolume 55, Issue 8, Page B98

Faith Needed because of Our Incompetence

We need faith because we are not competent. Faith is dangerous because it believes in things that have no proof.

Holy Spirit as Guide for Truth

In my earlier post on 7th October 2008, I quoted from C. H. Spurgeon's "Daily Check Book", that the Holy Spirit is our Guide for Truth. But this will bring about the same problem of Faith and Subjectivity faced by other religions whose foundation is not the Truth. We read the same passage from the Bible and interpret differently. We both claim subjective guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Compliment

Kanagaraj Singam wrote on 20th September 2008 at 3:13pm in my Facebook "to a man who always took the blame and shared the praises". I take it as a compliment.

Truth needs a guide

Copied from C. H Spurgeon's Daily Check Book:

October 6
The Leadership of Our Guide

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. (John 16:13)

Truth is like a vast cavern into which we desire to enter, but we are not able to traverse it alone. At the entrance it is clear and bright; but if we would go further and explore its innermost recesses, we must have a guide, or we shall lose ourselves. The Holy Spirit, who knows all truth perfectly, is the appointed guide of all true believers, and He conducts them as they are able to bear it, from one inner chamber to another, so that they behold the deep things of God, and His secret is made plain to them.

What a promise is this for the humbly inquiring mind! We desire to know the truth and to enter into it. We are conscious of our own aptness to err, and we feel the urgent need of a guide. We rejoice that the Holy Spirit is come and abides among us. He condescends to act as a guide to us, and we gladly accept His leadership. "All truth" we wish to learn, that we may not be one-sided and out of balance. We would not be willingly ignorant of any part of revelation lest thereby we should miss blessing or incur sin. The Spirit of God has come that He may guide us into all truth: let us with obedient hearts hearken to His words and follow His lead.

Ancestor Worship and Buddhism

Ancestor Worship and Buddhism are basically incompatible. If Ancestor Worship is true, then Buddhism must be false and vice versa. If Buddhism is true, then reincarnation is true. Then your ancestors were already reborn as something or someone, your worship is meaningless. It may even be ridiculous. Consider the chicken that may be offered to the ancestors. It could be your own great grandfather now reborn as a bird. Now you have the chicken killed and offered the chicken, which is also your great grandfather, to himself. But yet many altars in Chinese homes have Kuan-yin and the Ancestor Tablets side by side.

This is the Chinese people's religious tolerance, or should I day, religious apathy. They are interested only in Face and Money. They do not seek the truth. For this reason, China has technology, but no science.

Creative Snippets

Saw a van that passed by, with a soldier carrying a mop, and the big words on the side "Mop Squard". It is a cleaning company. Nice and creative name.

Saw hanging at the back of a car: "You kiasu, I kiasi".

Printed on an angpow - "Think maths, do science".

New Technologies

Writing was with us for as long as we know. It would be difficult to imagine writing as a new technology. It was. Like many things that we take for granted, writing has to be invented. It was a new technology to the great Greek philosopher, Socrates. Socrates fears writing and favours speech. In the Phaedrus (Greek: Φαίδρος), Plato described Socrates' fears that writing will cause memory to atrophy and that writing is more susceptible to "abuse" than speech. Future generations will appear to be wise because they read much without being properly taught. Socrates himself never wrote anything; all his ideas were written down by his student, Plato.

Likewise today, we fear new technology. We prefer to rely on established traditional methods to manage our knowledge. We prefer physical books, files, signatures, something which Socrates considered as susceptible to "abuse". We are puzzled by Socrates' view that speech is more reliable than writing. Do we not always have contracts in writing with signature and seal? Imagine a spoken contract! Future generations would wonder why we consider books more reliable than digital storage, wikis, search engines and other knowledge-based infrastructure, jsut as we wonder why Socrates value speech more than writing.

I do not know what the Chinese reaction to the invention of abacus was. But I remember the reaction of our school authorities to digital calculators. Calculators were already invented when I sat for my examinations. However, we were not allowed to use them. We have to use the slide rule and logarithm tables. How many among today's student is able to use the slide rule and logarithms table? They all use calculators. Basically, the Ministry of Education just delay the use of calculators. They could not stop it.

When I proposed to my company to use Mediawiki as a mean to manage our internal knowledge, an e-mail came back to say that we have to consider carefully, the main considerations will be the Non Disclosure Agreements. Anyway, this is the expected reaction, just like the Ministry of Education or big multi-national company. Actually, the wiki may be a bit dated, being about five years old. I think there may be better ways, but I am not fully aware of them.

Big companies that do not change can look to the fate of the Ottoman Empire or the Ching Empire of China. You may break into pieces and die (like the Ottoman Empire), or you may float around like a broken boat without a rudder for many decades (like China) and hope for a new management to rescue you. For small companies, they can look to the small countries, which have existed and died, without history remembering them, which is why I cannot give you the name of any of these countries.

Saved by Grace - so easy and yet so difficult

Read this in Daily Bread 30 Sep 2008:

One day, while Wim was in the marketplace in the Netherlands, he struck up a conversation with a woman who remarked that you can get to heaven by doing good works.

His attempt to explain that it is by God’s grace that we are “saved through faith” (Eph. 2:8) brought a smile as the woman repeated confidently: “and . . . by doing good works.” Then another woman volunteered, “You can hope you’ll go to heaven, but you can’t be sure.” Wim’s assertion that he did know for sure was met with a muttered, “Nobody knows for sure.”

Wim then showed the woman what 1 John 5:11-13 says. He explained: “See, it doesn’t say hope there, it says know.” Unconvinced, she said, “Like you, my pastor says that we have to have faith, but you really never know whether you’ve been good enough. You may think you have, but who can be sure?”

To some, Wim’s confidence may seem incredible. But he based his words on this statement: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works” (Eph. 2:8-9).

It’s true. We can’t be good enough. We can never do enough good things. But we can be sure of heaven if we simply believe on the Lord (Acts 16:31). — Cindy Hess Kasper

We cannot earn our way to heaven
By word or work or worth;
But if we trust in Christ to save us,
Then we’ll enjoy new birth. —Branon

We are saved by God’s mercy, not by our merit—by Christ’s dying, not by our doing.

Propaganda that Kills by Ching Cheong

The following article appears in Strait Times on 30th September 2008: Propaganda that kills By Ching Cheong (程翔), Senior Writer, The Straits Times (2008-09-30) HONG KONG: The tainted milk scandal shows China lacks something that even its years of spectacular economic growth cannot make up for. What is missing is a moral dimension in the country's growth without which China cannot hope to command respect or admiration from others. But this moral dimension would be hard to come by unless the country resurrects the human values it lost during the decades when class struggle was the order of the day. Despite calls for a people-based policy, the lack of political reform has allowed inertia to set in. The political system continues to put the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its leadership first, never mind the people and human values. This latest milk scandal bears striking similarities to the deadly Sars outbreak in 2003, both being the by-products of an archaic political system. When the first instance of Sars broke out in the autumn of 2002, the CCP was about to hold its 16th national congress to decide on its top leadership. The event was deemed 'a matter of great significance in the political life of our country', according to the CCP's Central Propaganda Department (CPD). To create a favourable socio-political environment for the congress and the National People's Congress in March 2003, the CPD issued a list of dos and don'ts for the nation's media. One of the don'ts was not to report on epidemics. Flu was in fact specifically mentioned in that document. The directive effectively blacked out news on the looming disease. As a result, the deadly Sars spread far and wide. The CCP at first denied that there was a serious outbreak. Ambulances carrying Sars patients played hide-and-seek to dodge World Health Organisation inspectors in Beijing. A retired army surgeon and veteran CCP member, Dr Jiang Yanyong, wrote a letter to Time magazine to reveal the magnitude of the Sars epidemic in Beijing. He sent his letter to Time after it was ignored by a state TV station. His simple act of telling the truth did much to stop the spread of Sars and began the process of containing the epidemic. In the milk scandal, it is now reported that the problem came to the notice of Sanlu, China's major dairy producer, as far back as December last year. When Sanlu's foreign partner, New Zealand's Fonterra Cooperative Group, found out about the contamination in August, it sought a product recall. This move came just days before the Olympic Games were due to start on Aug 8. Months earlier, the CPD had again instructed Chinese news media against reporting 'negative news' that could mar the Beijing Games. It was said not just to be a premier sporting event but also 'an important political event' for China. For this reason, Sanlu could do little and local authorities kept mum about the milk powder contamination cases. Weeks passed until New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark intervened and told her people to alert the authorities in Beijing directly that the tainted milk powder cases had come to light. In both the Sars and tainted milk cases, many lives could have been saved if the Chinese media had been informed and allowed to report the truth. Aside from remedying the problem in the milk industry, which is now taking place, the CCP must get to the crux of the problem. It should seriously reconsider its long-established propaganda policy, one that has brought harm, not just once, to both the people of China as well as many other countries. Professor Jiao Guobiao, a former lecturer in media studies at the Beijing University, blasted the CPD publicly in 2004, listing 14 grave consequences of its propaganda policies. One of them was 'sabotaging the country's rise'. Two years later in February 2006, a group of retired CCP veterans well versed in CPD operations - including Mr Li Rui, Mao Zedong's former secretary; Mr Zhu Houze, a former CPD boss; Mr Hu Jiwei, a former editor of the official People's Daily; and Mr Li Pu, a former deputy head of the state-controlled Xinhua news agency - jointly signed a letter to President Hu Jintao asking him to ease rigid media censorship as a means of building a truly harmonious society. The milk scandal once again testifies to the truth of their appeals.

Faith - the basis of all religions

As we have seen, we need faith because we are not omnipotent, omniscience and omnipresent. Since we do not know what happened after death, we need faith to believe what the religions tell us about life after death. Thus faith is the basis of all religions.

Faith and Verifiable Events

It was reported in the news that the most powerful atom-smasher ever (as of now) was built by CERN underneath the Franco-Swiss border between the Jura Mountains and the Alps near Geneva, Switzerland. It is known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which would create collisions of subatomic particles - known as Hadrons, that may help scientists reproduce the conditions that existed during the first moments after the Big Bang at the birth of the universe. I have not been to Switzerland to verify the news, but I believe. Would you believe in this news? Is the LHC really built? Would the North Korens believe in this news if they hear it?

Now let say the North Koreans reacted to this news by announcing that they had already built such a collider ten years ago, twice as large, under some mountains, thanks to the great wisdom of the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il. They had completed the experiment and have scentifically proven that the Great Leader Kim Il-sung was in fact the creator of the universe. I have not been to North Korea to verify the news, but I will not believe it. Would you believe in this news? Is the North Korean Collider really built? Would the North Korens believe in this news if they hear it?

Both events which I have listed above are Verifiable Events, because they happened in the past and in this dimension. The second event is, of course, made up by me. I can verify the first event, but I do not have the means. I cannot afford the time and money to go to Switzerland, and even if I have, I don't have the knowledge to verify that it is a Large Hadron Collider, and not just some large underground loop. Therefore, I believe in the news by faith.

Truth is ugly when you believe your own beautiful lie

Truth is ugly when you believe your own beautiful lie. A lie where you are the centre of attraction, the whole world revolves around you. You are the smart and capable person, the indispensible one. You do not want to know the ugly truth, where you are just an unimportant nobody.

Free Lunch

Getting out of MRT today, someone handed me a piece of paper, entitled "Free Lunch". It was an invitation to Lunch for the next 11 Tuesdays at Telok Ayer Methodist Church. That seem to contradict our government's "Nothing is free" philosophy. Actually nothing is free. If you get something free, that is because somebody had paid for you. Salvation is free, because God paid the price.

Government want their side of story in Money No Enough? Pay to say.

PM Lee Hsien Loong complained that "Money No Enough 2" is not objective enough and too one-sided. Let us look at it this way. Jack Neo's money is not enough, so he decided to make this movie. The poorer parts of Singapore's money is not enough, so individually, they cannot broadcast their plight. Collectively, they pay to Jack Neo via movie tickets to be their voice .
Now, everyone in Singapore knows that nothing is free. You have to pay and pay. This is the truth, though at lot of people in other parts of the world refuse to believe in the truth. Singaporeans know this truth because their government had taught them well. So they pay Jack Neo to be their voice. So Jack Neo has to be one-sided. He is their voice. If not, then the movie will not sell. If the government wants to have their voice heard, they should approach Jack Neo and said, "Look, we pay you this amount and you put this government character in to speak our side of the story." Then Jack Neo can make business and artistic decisions to see how he could in corporate both views into his story. You cannot expect Jack Neo to voice out for the government for free. After all, it is this government that teaches us that nothing is free. So they should practice what they preach. Pay and say. If Jack Neo manages to find a win-win solution for all, he may make a new move - "Money Enough" and everybody will be happy.

The Two Sides of Efficiency - Consumers and Producer

When I was young, I noticed how inefficient lifts are. Sometime, when all the lift are on the ground floor, then one person goes in, and the lift closes the door and moves off with that one person. Then another come, and another lift goes off with that one person. I felt that the problem is that the control is inside. The lift system cannot forecast passenger needs. A more efficient way, I thought, is to select the floor while you were outside. This way, the system can predict in advance who is waiting for the lift at which floor and desgin the most efficient route. And this idea was implemented at Wisma GKBI (pronounced Gay-Kah-Bay-Yee) in Jakarta. But it turned out that what was efficient for the lift is very inefficient for me.The lift took a long time during non-peak hours because it maximise its throughput, fetching as many passengers as possible in every floor. And I had to wait a long time for the lift.

China's Olympic Child Singer

To me, it really does not matter that nine-year-old Lin Miaoke (林苗可) sanged with seven-year-old singer Yang Peiyi's (杨沛宜) voice, as long as due credit is given. Unfortunately, it seem that in order to present a perfect Chinese girl, the authorities has pretended that Lin Miaoke has both the looks and the voice. When you sacrifice truth and justice, you will miss its benefits, among them, integrity, science, mathematics, good and clean government, and finally, wealth.

Faith Must Rest on Truth

According to the Bible, this is how faith is defined: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1 KJV)." Matthew Henry, in his commentary on this verse, wrote: "Faith and hope go together; and the same things that are the object of our hope are the object of our faith. It is a firm persuasion and expectation that God will perform all that he has promised to us in Christ; and this persuasion is so strong that it gives the soul a kind of possession and present fruition of those things, gives them a subsistence in the soul, by the first-fruits and foretastes of them: so that believers in the exercise of faith are filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory." The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines faith as "firm belief in something for which there is no proof; complete trust."

We need faith for everything, not only religion. We have to believe in things which we have no time to prove, which we have not seen or cannot see. We do not have the ability or the capacity or the time to see and prove all things we are told. Without faith, we cannot trust our friends. We will have to live with fear and suspicions.

Science also demands faith. We are told many things in Science and we believe without proving. We are taught in school that the earth goes round the Sun. Have our teachers seen it? Do they or do we have the skill to take the telescope and look into the sky and do we have the mathematical skill to calculate and prove from our observation that the earth is going round the sun? For most of us, we just accept by faith what our teachers taught.

While faith help us in our weakness and our blindness, it is also open to great abuse, since you have to believe in things you do not see and cannot prove. The same faith that allows me to believe in what my science teacher taught me, also allows me to believe in charlatans and fakes. Which is why faith must always rest in truth. Faith which rest in unprovable hypothesis will lead to superstition and lies. Faith that rest on truth will lead to progress.

The Prodigal Son

I had to prepare some sharing on the parable of Prodigal Son last Sunday. My son saw and he asked, "What does 'prodigal' means?" Oh. I always thought I know, but I realized I could not answer him. So I checked the dictionary and found from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary that it means "squander, recklessly spendthrift, or positively, yielding abundantly".

Then the next thing he remarked was, "I always thought that the title is 'The Prodigal's Son'. But now I know it is 'The Prodigal Son'".

The Prodigal's Son. The Prodigal Son. Who is the prodigal? The son or the father?

Unbelievers turn God into a woman

Unbelievers turn God into a impersonal, amoral, fickle woman - Mother Nature. When you do a good deed, Mother Nature may not reward you. When you do a bad deed, Mother Nature may not punish you. Mother Nature causes rain and sun to fall on the good and the wicked. Saints and evil men die in earthquakes, floods, cyclones and tsunamis. You may be the nicest person on earth, but a drunk driver may kill you and many wicked have prospered. If it were consistently so, we should all be wicked. But many good people have their rewards and many wicked people have their just desserts. It is also obvious to us that things well-planned would go well. The place is nicest when there are a lot of good people. So we cannot be too sure about being wicked all the time may bring good. Oh, Mother Nature! You are so fickle.

Mother Nature becomes an impersonal force, an uncertain factor to be considered in our plans. Mother Nature also creates jobs and is good for the economy. She helps to create jobs for philosophers and religious thinkers, to ponder why the good are suffering, and evil are prospering, and the world is so imperfect.

Justice, Mercy and Grace

"Justice is getting what we deserve. Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Grace is getting what we don't deserve." When others sin against us, we always want Justice for the other person. When we sin against others, we want Mercy and Grace for ourselves.

Many years (or maybe decades) ago, there was a popular TV show in Thailand called "Justice Pao". I read in some news (no internet then) that it was popular because the Thai were tired of their corrupt government and wished for someone like Justice Pao.

There are many people today wishing to get rid of their corrupt government. But would they truly be happy, if the Perfect Just Ruler were to rule their country? They always want justice for the Corrupt Big Fish who take the 50 million dollar bribe. They believe that if the Perfect Just Ruler were to rule their country, the Corrupt Big Fish will get his due punishment.

But did the people examine themselves? Did they take the 50 cent bribe? Would the Perfect Just Ruler be just, if he only punish the one who take the 50 million dollar bribe, but not the one who take the 50 cent bribe? Or are these people wishing for Justice for others, but Mercy and Grace for themselves?

Changi Airport Terminal 3

My flight (SQ963) landed in T3 for the first time. Not very impressed. Looked very much like T2, except newer. And for the first time, the finger print reader cannot read my thumb. Just coincidence, or is T3's finger print reader inferior to T2's?

Why I am not a Buddhist

Today is Vesak Day. It is a nice day to tell all why I am not a Buddhist. Bertrand Russell once wrote a book "Why I Am Not a Christian". It was long and thick and I never read it. I shall keep mine as short as possible.

He who asserts must prove. To be provable, it must be an event that can be objectively processed by our five senses and happened in this dimension of time and space.

Of the three religions that I know, they all have one thing in common. They rest on one important assertion. Take away that assertion, the religion collapse.

Christianity rests on the resurrection of Christ. "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins ... we are of all men most miserable. (1 Corinthians 15:17-19)"

Islam rest on the fact that Mohammed is a prophet of God, the same God of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus. If you can prove that Mohammed is not a prophet of God, or his God is not God of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus, you can dump the Koran in the rubbish bin.

Buddhism rest on reincarnation. If reincarnation is not true, you can throw away Buddhism.

Christianity and Islam rest on provable assertion. The resurrection of Christ can be proven as truth or lie, because it is an event that happen in the past, in this time and space, and can be testified with our five senses objectively. Whether Mohammed is a prophet of God can be proven by comparing what God told Mohammed and compared with what God told Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus.

Reincarnation does not happen in our time and space dimension. We cannot sense it by our five senses. We need extrasensory perception (ESP) to prove it. I can see. If I tell a person blind from birth that the sky is white in colour with black polka dots, there is no way he can prove whether I am right or wrong. Since I cannot sense reincarnation, you can tell me any rubbish about reincarnation, I would not know if you are telling the truth or not.

If the foundation is an unprovable assertion, how can I trust the truths that are derived from it? How can I be a Buddhist, if I cannot trust the Buddhist truth?

May Day Worker Seminar

Learned something interesting after attending my Church's May Day Worker Seminar yesterday.

First, I realized that we have an employment contract with Jesus:
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another."If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.'"But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
(John 15:14-27)

Then we have the Model Employee's testamony:
serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house,testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.
(Acts 20:19)

Finally, we have an example of a Job Interview with God:
But Moses said to the LORD, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue." Then the LORD said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak." But he said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else. "Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, "Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.
(Exodus 4:10-16)

The moral of the story is:You are God's INSTRUMENT. His plan will succeed, with or without you. Your job is basically stress-free. Your project is guaranteed to succeed by your Boss. It is up to you to decide if you want to have the privilege of being part of His plan, or perish.

Hmmm... if you did not see the link between the moral and the quotes, it is because I did not write the whole sharing.

Chicken and Egg Problem

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Which comes first, the intelligence that created the universe with all its rules, or the rules are always there, allowing the universe to be form?
The Bible solves this problem by telling us that "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1)". Therefore the chicken came first.