There are several issues that struck me after reading these few blog entries. I would just like to point out certain things which I feel. Not in any motive, but just to share. Before I begin, you must understand that probably my approach to things is very much different from all of yours. To a “to-be doctor” I guess every thing boils down to practicalities. That is me, focusing on what I see as practical. (at this point you must note that I am typing this with only distant memory of what you have discussed, cos I rarely have internet in Uganda, so my apologies if I’ve gotten a wrong impression of what any of you have said) So just pointing out stuff which looks starkly different from what I think. And yes, I constantly like to explain and think and even challenge the bible. I’ve been taught to do that. But the fundamental belief is that all things can be explained, there are no contradictions in the bible, just whether one has the time to read through it. But yes, I am rushing thru this, so just typing what comes to my mind. NOT STRUCTURED AT ALL.
Firstly, some of you have quoted several philosophers and so on. My question is, these are but just mere humans expressing their views and thinking. So they are just like you and me, trying to explain certain things in life, just putting forth theories etc. Yet, theories are but theories, no matter how rational, how logical they seem, is it the truth? If they are not, why bother even reading / quoting them? (hmmm guess up to this point I can already feel many arrows shooting onto me) Yes, for interest. Yups, for history. Other than that? One may quote philosophies that appeal to him to explain his point. That further skews everything – one leads to another to another. So is that the truth? No.
However, I know nothing about plagiarism of the Greek philosophers. So please educate me. But before we jump to any conclusions about that, what you are talking about is probably some isolated teachings on how to be “good”, almost all religions alike, so who is plagiarizing who? But yet, these are but secondary. It is the central idea that matters. Most religions teach us to be “good”, but what is “good”? Universal morality as you have mentioned? Is being “good” as we’ve defined the end to it all? Then of course I would agree that all religions are the same, there is not much thinking to be done, and of course coolgoh’s take on how intellectual people, those who can reason what is good and what is not, do not need religion etc. These are but standards set by man for man. Are these the true standards?
Yes, I anticipate you all will start standing up and say why am I highlighting what is true etc, is there really a truth etc etc. But simple simple. There must be a truth. And my take is that a truth is a truth. It cannot be challenged cannot be changed. So there can only be one explanation, not others. (of course, if I dwell on why I think Christianity is the sole truth etc, I’d have to take the whole day… shan’t go onto that yet. mabbe in future)
Next, many people have mis-quoted the bible. The bible is ONE book. So it has to be interpreted as a whole, not isolated lines. (although the labeling of the verses have made it so convenient for people to quote) For the bible, there is simply no distinction of the new and the old testament. It is just like chapter one and chapter two of a novel. The new is a continuation of the old. There are no new laws no new ideas. You all have been quoting Matthew, so lets start off from Matthew 1 and 2 then. Matthew 1 tells of the genealogy of Jesus. It traces all the forefathers etc. God has attempted to prove to man that all these are part of history. If we really trace, all these are the exact lineage. Note that a large part of the bible is dedicated to the lineage. These are not invented, but is recorded, so that the future people (like us) know how the history progressed. So the bible is a record of historical (NOT fictional) events. And the lineage of Abraham all the way to Jesus, tells of the fact that how since the beginning of time God has already been wanting to send Jesus down to save mankind. The old testament is the covenant of law, while the new testament is the covenant of grace. The old testament tells of the promise God will send One to save mankind. The new testament tells of the promise of salvation through the One.
Note that there are many cross references in the bible, as it is all one book! For eg in Matthew 1 the birth of Jesus was described exactly in Isaiah 7:14 (shows fulfilling of the prophecy), that he will be born out of a virgin and was from the Holy Spirit. Then in Matthew 2, there are cross references to Micah 5:2 (that he will be born in Bethlehem) and then in Hosea 11:1 (that he was to raise his son in Egypt). etc etc So my point being the new testament is interpretation of the old testament, it explains the old testament, which some might not understand. So there are no new laws, new things. God did not change. He was always a God of love. He did not “turn into a loving God” instantly in the new testament.
Yes, God is jealous. But if you interpret the whole passage instead of that line, you’d understand what this “jealous” means. These people were worshipping idols instead of God. God is NOT jealous (like the jealousy in humans) of the idols, but He is jealous of the love of man. He loves us so much, desires to have fellowship with us so much so that if we do not love Him / fellowship with Him, He is being torn apart. That is being “jealous”. (think: one sided love affair) Is He still perfect? Yes.
About all the destruction to mankind, how God destroyed cities of Sodom etc etc… It is judgment. From the start till the end of the bible, it is all about judgment. We have sinned. So we need judgment. Just like how if we break a law in Singapore, we have to face up to the punishment. Except that WHEN is the judgment met. For the “old testament people” their judgment has been done. For the “new testament ppl” it will occur after we die.
Idea about original sin. We all know that humans are not perfect. It is not just about choices. We may sin even without choosing to. The thought, the action, just comes to our mind. Its almost like a spinal reflex. No thought.
We may try to explain our ideas, our existence by our wisdom, knowledge or intellect. Yet we know that if someone is of lower intellect, he may never explain things as the higher intellect sees it. So the higher intellect must explain to the lower one. If we can apply this to the situation between man and God, then you’d see why I think it is pointless to look at philosophers and so on. Humans like to think arrogantly that we are the highest on this earth and so we attempt to explain everything ourselves. Yet, are we really the highest being? No. (note that if we are the highest being, we would not be subjected to sufferings etc, we would be the one creating this world and not subjected to the forces of this world.) And can we ever explain fully something of the higher being? No. Its just like a dog can never explain what his master thinks (erps poor analogy I know but you get the idea) So you need the higher being to explain things to you. Which is God. God came down (in the form of Jesus) to explain things to us, to explain the old testament to us.
Erps taken too long. Too much to explain. (haha we should all meet up when XY etc comes back! class outing!) But yups the crux is Christianity is logical and rational. If you would allow, just email me each contradiction you (anyone, not just XY or GCS) think and I will try my best to explain. Yet note all my answers will be from the Bible. NOT from any philosophers or any other people. So I can only give a Christian perspective. And doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist or Buddhist or what. Yups, guess its just a exchange of ideas, breaching a closer understanding!
Last note. The difference in Christianity is that it is all about a personal relationship with God, not any intellectual discussion or anything. You will know that He is in your life, He is there. You can feel the Holy Spirit, you know He is guiding you. A true Christian is one who has a relationship with God, not just based upon some simple motive or logic. It is like a love affair with your spouse. (And yes, the love between man and woman is but an emulation of the relationship between God and Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, shan’t go into that…)
kk. Shucks. My English is really atrocious. Too much of dialects & Singlish in the wards! Now lugandan! haha
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
haha GCS doesn't understand the concept behind 'personal relationships with God'. If you realised after my first post I stopped pushing forward Christian ideas because they won't work on him - he doesn't get it. He would attack these ideas even - so to convince him that he needs to open his eyes and heart I need to use secular ideas, haha note how I switched the topic to Renaissance humanism.
there are 2 things about your post that I would wish to reply to:
1. Yup of course God is still the same God, but what from what I understand is that in the OT and the NT what became different was man's relationship with God. In the OT Christ was a prophecy, and in the NT Christ was part of history - that is already a difference?
2. Personally I think that it is necessary to read other philosophers other than the Bible. By providing a comparison and a contrast it can help me question and then strengthen my faith. I don't think discounting people like Richard Dawkins as a heretic will help anyone with anything - God put him there and made him say things like this for a reason, and the reason probably is to equip people with alternative knowledge to start dialogues.
It is useless to attempt to talk about spirituality with people like GCS directly - and if I were to get him to be less combative I need to employ secular rhetoric. If you were to see it in this way - since there is only one God, everything and every idea will eventually be traced back to Him - there isn't supposed to be conflicts anymore. I am blessed with the ability to access a variety of such resources because of my coursework - and these are stuff that I can use in a variety of ways to defend my religious views.
Thus I do not agree that once you have access to God's word and thus the truth you can shut yourself from other random sound. The pastor at the church that I go to quotes a huge variety of sources - including secular philosophers - to highlight, compare and contrast the Bible. I think it makes a lot of sense and it is convincing to me.
You don't have to agree with me of course - just some thoughts. Next semester I am doing a class on philosophiy of religion, and we will read tonnes of books on the issue. I'm excited about that class :D
In response to XY’s comments:
Definitely there is a difference, but there is NO CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF GOD. He did not change from a non-loving to a loving God. And it is part of the same book, same idea.
If you read in Genesis, you will find that very initially, God had the most intimate relationship with Adam and Eve. He would go into the Garden of Eden and search for them, calling out gently to them. That was love. They could face him face to face. Yet, when you read Exodus, about Moses, you will realise that only Moses could face the fire face to face, while the other people, because of their sin, could not fellowship with God and there are lines that meant “if they see me they will die” all because man, with sin, is imperfect and all these imperfectness will melt away when we face our maker. Back to that analogy that He is light and sin is the lack of light. If there is darkness in one corner of the room, but you bring in strong lights, will not the darkness disappear? Because of the darkness in us, we cannot face Him.
One thing we must understand that other than being a loving God, He is also a righteous God. So if one sins, you will be destroyed. If one sins like Sodom, one will be destroyed. In fact, there are some people that say our present day society is much worse than Sodom (homosexuality and all), hence if no judgment was met out (eg tsunamis, earthquakes) it would not have been fair to the city of Sodom. Note that Sodom was once a prosperous place, yet people in their complancency and richness forgot God and indulged in sin.
The central idea of the bible is the same. Why do we need Christ? Because we have sinned. So people have sinned from the Old Testament (OT) to New Testament (NT) till now. The relationship with God is still broken. How to mend this relationship? The sins in us have to be cleansed by blood. Before the coming of Christ, there were many sacrifices made to the Lord, for every sin that one commits. Blood of the animal has to be shed in order to cleanse the sin for us to come into God’s presence. Yet, in the NT, Christ has become the sacrifice. (That is why, some of the rituals mentioned in the OT is not performed and not observed, eg eating animals like pigs, as there is no need to keep “ritual cleanliness”) That is why He is often described as the lamb of sacrifice. He sacrificed for our sake, even though He has not sinned. And yes, there is no original sin, for Jesus has shown us that it is possible for us to live without sin.
I am not saying it is not necessary to read about other philosophies. In fact, it opens up many discussion points for both non-Christians and Christians alike to learn. But what I feel is that ultimately, these opinions are just opinions of other homo sapiens. It is food for thought, they can trigger us to find out more, but definitely just quoting and believing in them will not make us any wiser.
Neither am I saying that we do not shut ourselves from random sound. That is why if anyone has any contradictions they can approach me and I will help them out. In fact, I won’t shy away from controversial topics. Like why we should all read the Da Vinci Code and point out discrepancies instead of just condemning it. How can you ever comment on it if you have not even read it yourself? Yet, for those that are not strong in faith, these can waver their faith, which is why we should all know the bible well before talking about other stuff. If we do not even know about the book we advocate, how can we bring others to His Word?
Just that I felt that talking all about Renaissance Humanism and so on are just like “zhi shang tan bing” (in chinese, speak strategies only on paper and not practical.) Maybe cos I found these philosophers abit like “dreamers” cos their occupation is just to sit there and think about the world but nothing really gets changed. Ha doctors don’t talk about philosophy of life but rather the practical way to treat the patient, alleviate suffering, ie solve the problem at hand. You get the idea.
hahaha let me say something shameless, and this is what i genuinely think to be true:
you say doctors are always thinking of practical ways to help people, yeah you're right :)
but - i might be generalising a little here - the tools that doctors use come from philosophers -> scientists -> engineers. without the natural philosophers who came out with new philosophies and new ideas of seeing the world during the early modern period, medicine would still be stuck in the ages of Galenic medicine.
so, not from a religious standpoint - 'zhi shang tan bing' actually very important. it's not true that 'they sit there and think and nothing actually gets changed' - things DO get changed. haha and my major makes me study HOW they actually get changed.
basically - if there is no philosopher, there won't be modern science; if there is no modern science, there won't be research; if there is no research, there won't be modern medicine - and western medicine will continue to be ruled by classical doctrines.
haha politically i'm moderate/liberal - and i personally think that the republicans are very hypocritical. so i find it hard to accept stuff like advocating abstainance as the only method to prevent transmission of STDs and God ought to punish all homosexuals etc. haha this is what i see as idealism - they go against common public health knowledge, they are proven to be ineffective, and in america there are still strong lobby groups advocating these.
but i don't think my political views conflicts with the Christian teachings as far as i am exposed to. what do you think though?
You may be true to a certain extent, but lets be practical again. It is just by natural progression that humans, as masters of the world (well, most humans think so... but we know we are not) will change and make progress when they see something that needs improvement. that is how essentially the society progresses. So i can say that you are really wrong to attribute the progression of philosophers to scientists to modern medicine etc. Its actually the whole human race.
my political views stem very much from my biblical background. so eg for homosexuality, i do not condone, but i am not biased against them. For i know it is but a type of sin. there is really no big sin or small sin etc. in fact we should embrace and help everyone, no matter what they have, as long as they are willling to accept our help.
However, another thing i've learnt is that God puts several layers of restriction on us to prevent us / remind us not to sin. So its like there is the external restriction (eg govt, kings and country laws) and the internal restriction (your guilty conscience, Holy Spirit). So if the external restriction is such that it no longer acts as a control over us, we have lost one line of defence. So I am for the implementing of laws against homosexuals, yet i believe we should try to understand and help one another, whether we are homosexuals or not. we are after all, homo sapiens. God loves each and everyone of us. You think His heart will not bleed when so many of us turn away from Him and see us burn in hell? However, He has to be fair and just too.
Finally i must end of with a less biased statement hahaha i do recognise that philosophers have their contributions!
You may be true to a certain extent, but lets be practical again. It is just by natural progression that humans, as masters of the world (well, most humans think so... but we know we are not) will change and make progress when they see something that needs improvement. that is how essentially the society progresses. So i can say that you are really wrong to attribute the progression of philosophers to scientists to modern medicine etc. Its actually the whole human race.
my political views stem very much from my biblical background. so eg for homosexuality, i do not condone, but i am not biased against them. For i know it is but a type of sin. there is really no big sin or small sin etc. in fact we should embrace and help everyone, no matter what they have, as long as they are willling to accept our help.
However, another thing i've learnt is that God puts several layers of restriction on us to prevent us / remind us not to sin. So its like there is the external restriction (eg govt, kings and country laws) and the internal restriction (your guilty conscience, Holy Spirit). So if the external restriction is such that it no longer acts as a control over us, we have lost one line of defence. So I am for the implementing of laws against homosexuals, yet i believe we should try to understand and help one another, whether we are homosexuals or not. we are after all, homo sapiens. God loves each and everyone of us. You think His heart will not bleed when so many of us turn away from Him and see us burn in hell? However, He has to be fair and just too.
Finally i must end of with a less biased statement hahaha i do recognise that philosophers have their contributions!
haha you're right about the whole human race thing. everything affects every other thing in history, so it definitely is not the philosophers only... and definitely change is gradual :P
but i would also like to point out that, there are usually certain conditions that would have to be satisfied before changes can take place, and usually there is a group of people who pushes it. something similar to the history of the protestant reformation in 16th c...
so the philosophers' contribution (in natural philosophy at least) is to play the leading role! :D
(haha definitely not only natural philosophy though, but i am not very familiar with other aspects of history like literature and art so i can't really comment without making mistakes... as GCS has kindly pointed out :P)
hmms regarding political stand, that part is a little tricky. both of us will never agree. let's not talk about it anymore lol :P
Post a Comment