Unweaving the Rainbow

Opening lines from Richard Dawkins's Unweaving the Rainbow




We are going to die,
And that makes us the lucky ones.
Most people are never going to die
Because they are never going to be born.

The potential people
Who could have been here in my place,
But who will in fact never see the light of day,
Outnumber the sand grains of Sahara.

Certainly those unborn ghosts
Include greater poets than Keats,
Scientists greater than Newton.

We know this
Because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA
So massively outnumbers the set of actual people.

In the teeth of these stupefying odds,
It is you and I,
In our ordinariness
That are here.

We, privileged few,
Who won the lottery of birth against all odds.
How dare we whine
About our inevitable return to that prior state,
From which the vast majority
Had never stirred?


-Richard Dawkins

The Worst God Argument

I remember just prior to this school break, we had one interesting Malay period. It was a Thursday afternoon, 1:20p.m. was the time. We were in the chemistry lab for what will be the last class before our holidays began.

Our Bahasa Melayu teacher was teaching Malay Literature, and the particular poem he taught that day was the heated topic of discussion.

The poem goes like this, it talks about an old man who is trying to find religion because he had lived in the darkness of having no religious faith for all the years. He realised that he had sinned greatly for not having enough religious education throughout his life, and is feeling guilty with a little bit of worriness. His old age hampers his efforts to learn more about religion, but he swears all his heart that his faith to Allah is undivided.

Well... It's a pretty decent piece of poem I'd say, but being in our class, religion topics will always be subjected to debates. Then the teacher went on and talked a bit about religion, well, in fact, he talked quite a lot. He said that God is the supreme almighty being that is always watching over us, and we should be nice, even though we can't see him, etc...



Alright, I'mma pause it there and talk a bit about the religious beliefs in our class. For those who doesn't know, there are 3 major groups of religious views in this world, according to my interpretion.

1. Theism - The belief that there's a God(or many deities) out there and is constantly monitoring us. The God(s) is/are all powerful and has the ability to interfere and alter our lifes.
   
2. Deism - The belief that God created the universe and seeded the universe with life but does not interact with the universe in any ways.
3. Atheism - The belief that there's no God ever.

Okay, in case any of you guys are wondering, I belonged to the second group - The deists, even though I'm a Buddhist. My belief is that the existence of God itself is a hypothesis, and until now, yet to be genuinly proved or disproved. So I'm actually open to the views that God exists, but I'm sceptical(note: doubt) that the Almighty himself/herself/itself(If God beared any gender at all) had actually interacted with humans. I mean (I know this will sound a bit arrogant, so sorry if you decided to take it seriously), why would an all powerful God care how we live in Earth anyway? We're so small in this universe that God created, so minute that God himself will have trouble finding us everytime he decided to give us a visit. But don't get me wrong, I do believe in God, but not in a way that I would pray to him asking for favor, because I know he wouldn't care. Even if he does, God would seem unfair, unjust, and I would look selfish for getting the favor when others don't.

Alright, as far as I'm concerned, there are a few other deist/atheist in our class, notable ones including Esmond and Yin Pin, maybe Zhong Xin LOL!. And Song Guang being known by us as "The Holy One" XD, but it's all good intention la, he knows the most about The Bible(I think :P) among the students in our class ma.



The few of us created a mildly heated debate with our teacher. It was when he started to say that God exists even when we don't see him. That I understand, that's his point of view, but it got worse when he decided to emphasis on his point.

He said," God is just like air, you can't see it, but it exists."

I went "OMFGWTFPWNZOR!!!"

Of all the religious arguments about the existence of God, this is REALLY REALLY the WORST one I've ever heard. I've seen many documentaries, debates in this topic and this is just the most ignorant statement a person has ever made in advocating the existence of God.

Then we started to debate with him. Actually, what we're trying to say is that you can't compare air with God. But being the Bahasa Melayu teacher he is, I accept his ignorance lar, because by explaining further we'll move into the realm of science where he'll start to look awkward.



So let me get this argument straight. By saying you can't see air and therefore it doesn't exist, he is actually forgetting the fact that humans have 5 senses. We can feel the air, we can smell the air in form of scents, we can hear the air in form of winds, we can even taste the air given it is saturated with some other compounds.

On the contrary, we can't feel God by touch, we can't smell God, we can't hear God, we can't taste God, and we can't see God. The only way we know God exists, some people claimed, is through the special 6th sense, which until now is not truly proven to exist. Therefore we can't prove that God exists, but we can't disprove it either.

AND!!! He was wrong, we can in fact see air, how? Dry Ice is a very good example. Dry ice itself is frozen carbon dioxide, which is a component of the air. There you go, we can see air, but only not in it's gaseous form. And there are many other "see-able" airs like liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen, they're in liquid form and we can see it. That's why I said teacher gave the worst comparison of something with God I've ever heard.



Then we discussed with him about a few other religious topics too, including Song Guang who asked him a funny yet sensitive question. But I'll leave the details for another day when I'm free to talk about it again, it should be interesting for me and you :)

So, until next time, cheers~

Golfing with Alba; Photography Session 4: KGA Kids Golf Day

Venue: UNITEN Golf Course
Time & Date: 24th of August, 9:00 a.m.
Duration: 5 hours 
Camera: Canon IXUS 80
Other Props: Golf balls
What/Who I brought along: My Approach Wedge


So I helped my coach to bring the kids out to the golf course for today. Most of them are beginners and is going into the golf course for the first time.  And there were 15-16 of them if I'm not wrong.

And had to divide them into 4 flights leh, three which were led by my coach, Wilson and me and one flight will go on their own.

My flight's kids were Ker Jing(don't like to play golf one), Isabel(not bad for a 4/5 year old girl), Jared(talks too much), and Bryan(his father talks too much)... Overall you can imagine how chaotic the situation was. First of all they had never been into the golf course before, so I have to look out and show commands just to keep them from being hit by other balls. And then I have to explain the rules for hundreds of times before they understand (they're kids anyway). And then I have got parents who are following and giving me pressure as if I am not teaching them the proper way to play golf... Grrrr....! Going crazy la~

Anyways, after that I joined Wilson and Nick's family for some nonsense gollfing LOL! Hmmm... Can't really explain how nonsensical it was, they are just pure jokers la~

So...Here are the pictures from today. Hope you'll learn something about golf just by looking at it XD...


Getting ready for the game.


Uncle Francis caddying his son Nick.


Bridgestone, the golf balls I usually play for normal game and tournaments, besides Titleist Pro.V1(this ball costs like RM20+ for one  :X ... I mean the Titleist )


The practice greens


Nick acting like pro.





Eh... Miss la~



Wilson tangan gatal.

My Approach Wedge

Hit so high.

Found some rubber seeds. Hmm... What to do to it?

You hit it of course! (It passed the water by the way)



After the game too free, so I took consecutive shots to capture the ball falling into the hole...

I liked this one, though the ball is not very clear.




And for this section I'm bringing you some moments I find interesting... Here it goes. (Note: not all the dialogues are real LOL!)






This is my coach Uncle Ken







See their reaction...






Then I did a few misc pictures lor...


Sky

Sky...Again. This picture does gives me the goosebumps, it kinda feels like it's what you see when you ascends to the Heavens after you died.

Got this taken from my house. When I look at these kind of pictures, sometimes I do wonder if there's a God, where is he hiding? Why is God hiding? 


And there ends this long post. I hope you liked it. 

So till next time, cheers~

Odyssey No.12 - Universiti Malaya Medical Centre

Went for Golf training for 3 hours only today, not many students were there since it's school holidays and the Puasa month just began yesterday.

So... Worked on a lot of things, especially in some key areas. So this holiday have to practice a lot to get it right lor.




This afternoon drove all the way to the middle of Kuala Lumpur, to Universiti Malaya Medical Center to give Hwa's sister Shu Min, who went through an operation, a visit.

Stopped by at Song Guang's church to pick him up before going around the town searching for a place to buy some gifts. Argh!!! Screw THAT mini market and Econsave lar, can't find what we want to buy, have to settle for other things instead... =_=

Anyways, the road wasn't as jammed as expected, luckily. And we reached the place at 4pm. But the place was...darn too complicated... Almost lost my way inside the place LOL!

So err... Well, Shu Min was fine, I guess... It was quite awkward being in the ward with her whole family :P

And then we left at 5pm, paid RM2 for the parking ticket. And then I realised --- THE EXIT WASN'T EVEN BLOCKED. Grr...! Anyways, the way back went smoothly, until my GPS unit screwed me up, it can't even locate my position, and I did a wrong turn at the highway :X Then have to waste like extra 20 minutes to get back home, not to mention what it did to my petrol money... Geram gila!

Overall, this was a crazy experience. Like what the harmonica guys always say, Dare Dare Die! I really no brainer for today la...

Haha... So that's all for today I guess. Tomorrow still have to bring kids masuk padang, should be chaotic as usual, expect some pictures :) Till next time, cheers~

Photography Session 3: Emo skies

Venue: Sg.Chua, School
Time & Date: 16th of August and 22nd of August respectively
Duration: N.A. 
Camera: Canon IXUS 80
Other Props: Brain
What/Who I brought along: Empty-handed


Actualy this isn't really a photography outing/session, it's just a compilation of some photos taken the course of the last week. Well, only half of the photos was taken by me, the other half by Lixuan, they're not too bad, so I've decided to share with you guys. :)


Taken in a Sg.Chua village

Ditto as above.

Taken in school lor (obvious lar...)

Just outside the school.

Ah, found an interesting photography subject, the trees beside the new basketball court. Taken by Lixuan. I like this pic personally  :)

Taken by Lixuan.

Taken by Lixuan.

Taken by Lixuan. Digital zoom, that's why the quality like that =_=.

Taken by me.

Same


So that's all I think. Stay tuned for more photo sharings in the future, cheers~ :)

Golfing with Alba: NO!!! Porridge!!! & EPL

Introducing "Golfing with Alba", an insight to what it's like to be the golfing me. Stay tuned :)

======================================================================

Ah...Another typical Sunday. Well today I went for training as usual, after two weeks of break from golf due to me having to buy birthday present on the last Sunday :P

So I arrived at Sri Petaling Driving Range at 10a.m. in the morning, and saw something that's not right - MY COACH WAS NOT THERE!!!

Turns out he was sick, it was not H1N1 though :) . So Wilson as usual was there, teaching the kids (tough job). No one can check my swing, sakit kepala~

Then coach came, late, but he's okay. Then after whacking around 60-70 balls, we went for lunch, me, Wilson and Coach (I call him Uncle Ken btw).
Wilson driving lor.

WTF?! We went down to KL?

Just beside Times Square

Come so far just to eat porridge. NOO!!!!

Fascinating...  Porridge does not equate to Energy... =_=


Suan le ba... Then went to Uncle Ken's house to sit for a while. Saw "Final Score" on ESPN. 

Yea football is back again, though I was never a big fan of it. Still, this season's going to be interesting, we're seeing Man U without Ronaldo, Man City with an all-star team, etc... Anyways, my favourite team won their first match :)  ...  Arsenal 6-1 Everton... Woohoo~ This should shut those critics of Wenger's policy up :P

So at 2p.m. something we went back to the driving range, and I was working on this:Yea, I was told that my club always comes down first. Have to work on that more. And needs to do more pull up, my distance is going downhill...Grrrr...

And so this has been another day of golfing. Till next time, cheers~