Where To, Generation Y?

And the final exams is here!!!

Was too bored studying Chemistry, so I decided to write something.


Anyway, lately I was listening to Gorillaz's latest environmental themed album, Plastic Beach :O... It is a cool album, tons of techno and electronic element though. Kinda gave me a brain stimulation thinking about what the future holds

Here are the album arts, in case you're trying to find it in a CD store :D

Speaking of the future, it's just so exciting and gloomy at the same time isn't it? With all the budding technologies that is coming up, coupled with the rise of environmental issues and ongoing global conflicts, one would think that at this point, it could go either way.

So, what am i doing today? Well, I'm going give you a glimpse of what Plastic Beach gave me, I'm going to do a little prediction on what to expect in the upcoming years, whether we're gonna live that long or not (we possibly could, read on :D ).


Now let's start with a recap on the major "revolutions" that shaped the course of human history shall we?


First, it was the "Hunting and Gathering" revolution. No a big deal, almost every animal hunt or forage for food. But they don't store/hoard foods for future consumption, and it was this little advantage that gave birth to a human tribal lifestyle, making the first humans "humans".

Then came Horticulture and Pastorialism. Horticulture simply means the raising of crops using hand tools, while pastorialism means the domestication of animal. Instead of finding food when they needed it, our ancestors found a way to create a sustainable food source, bringing the food to them instead of the other way round. This of course, saved tons of energy and allowed our ancestors more time to work on other stuffs, which subsequently developed culture.

Third was one of the most defining moments in human history, the Agricultural Revolution. It started off around six to seven thousand years B.C.. Agriculture allowed humans to produce a large surplus of food supply, allowing a burst of human population growth. The need for water to water the crops prompted our ancestors to settle around river banks, which gave birth to the first ancient civilizations. It was not until the 18th century that the Agricultural Revolution peaked. Then came the invention of steam engine, which sparked off the Industrial Revolution.

The Industrial Revolution changed the nature of jobs in a society. Steam engines were introduced into almost every sector of the economy, especially agriculture, replacing lots of human labor in the process. The focus of the economy shifted from extracting raw materials, to processing raw materials industrially. Not only were we mass-producing finished products, technologies were also improving rapidly, and the average human lifespan increased significantly!

Since the invention of computers, human growth had increased multiple-fold. Computers brought about the Information Revolution. Ladies and gentlemen, this is where we're in the middle of, the rise of information processing, and many refer the people born when computer technology started flourishing as the "Generation X", implying a new chapter in human history. The nature of jobs too was changed, as in the Industrial Revolution, instead of working with real objects, we're now working with abstract information. Service and creativity jobs replaced a lot of labor jobs. This is where almost aspect of human life improved in leaps due to the rapid growth of new technologies.



So where are we heading to at this point of time?


Green Revolution
The rise of Industrial Revolution slowly resulted in human "Oil Addiction". Simply put, we get most of our energy sources from fossil fuel, and as much as we like to use it, it is finally taking its toll on us. Environmental issues are not news, and it's caused by our addiction to fossil fuel as a source of energy. And today, we're at the tipping point where if the problems are left unsolved, we could go down as the generation that failed the human race.

Now I wouldn't be surprised if that happened, given that we're entangled in this messy web of connections between fossil fuel and the current human lifestyle. It would take bold steps for us to change our lifestyles to allow "oil rehabilitation".

But if we do take the first steps, it could pave way for the "Green Revolution", where we seek to reform our methods of obtaining energy to a more sustainable one. I'm predicting this to happen in a few decades, in fact, it could just happen in the next few years.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

New World Order
The world has 194 nations, each with distinct government style. This is a brave prediction LOL, but I'm predicting that within 200 years, the world's nations will finally be united under a single government to form a New World Order.

Now it might seem impossible for it to happen for now, given the differences in view between the different peoples in the world. But think about it, the development of transportation technology had caused globalization, which kind of spawned a global culture.

There are nations which are poor and where the people there do not get enough exposure to the global culture, but given enough time, its growth would catch up and peak. At that moment, the global culture would be diffused into almost every society, and uniting all nations under one government is a more feasible feat, if not a more efficient, way to manage the world's resources.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Singularity
Given the rate at which the computational powers are growing, it wouldn't be long before computer gets as intelligent as human. The term for which this event is "The Singularity". Science visionaries predicted that this would happen in around 2030.

As exciting as it might sound, it might yet bring a new problem to humankind. Think for example, what if the computers decided that humans are an inferior race and tries to terminate us? Go watch Terminator : /

Androids, human-like robots, would raise yet many issues. How would you distinguish between an android and a human, given that they have the same intelligence, same outer appearance? Would it be okay to marry an android? What about killing one? Do we need android right laws, just because they are as intelligent as we are?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Genetic Revolution
The human genome was finally cracked and published in 2003, opening new doors to the field of genetics.

As to today, humans are already quite adept at manipulating genetic materials. We cloned animals, we modified the genome of crops, we introduced genes to bacterias to mass produce stuffs. It would just be a matter of time before we start tinkering with human genome, isn't it?

The Genetic Revolution, I predict, would happen within 50 years, when our moral understanding catches up with the development of the technology.

Genetic Revolution would see human lifespan increasing dramatically, possibly extending it by 50-100 years or indefinitely. The prospects are promising, new medical technologies spawned from the understanding of genetics could greatly reduce diseases, inherited or contracted.

By breaking moral barriers, we might also see the birth of the first "superhumans", a generation of newborns genetically modified to optimize physical health, which could lead to a split in the evolutionary timeline of human race, where the rich who could afford the technology would be superior to the other humans who couldn't afford the technology.

Cloning too, might also become widespread, though absolutely immoral by today's standard. But moral judgments change with time, cloning might become morally accepted in the future.

The application of genetic engineering is almost limitless, although not all are practical sometimes. Imagine creating a whole new species of "chimaeras"?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Space Colonization
Earth is limited, soon we could run out of resources, or if we can even get that far, run out of spaces to live. Space colonization is just a matter of time, be it on the moon, or mars. It could happen much earlier than we think it will.

But the process of building a livable place will take a long time. For moon, maybe decades from the start of colonization process before we can really live there. For mars, from at least a few centuries to a millenium, due to the need to terraform the whole planet into a sustainable habitat.

In any case, it would be very uneconomical to colonize other planets at least until we start mastering ways to harness earth's resources efficiently.

My prediction? Within 100 years for the moon, 300 years for Mars.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Death of Abrahamic Religions
Now of all the predictions this one is really the boldest one. I'm predicting that the Abrahamic Religions - Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, will drop from the "Religion" status to "Cult" status, or at least a "Minority" status, within 3 generation's time from now.

Given that these religions already have a deep root within the current world societies, they would be hard to fade a way , at least not without a fight. But the increasing understanding of the universe has prompt lots of us to question the validity of many of the religious teachings. Such as the question "Is blind faith alone suffice for our life?"

On the contrary, secular movements are picking up momentum. Ever since the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, many people started questioning if the traditional religious teachings are still relevant in the current world anymore.

Of course, some sects of the religions adapt, but it is still stigmatized by secular advocates. Some adaptations are more inclined to the current world situation, some straying away. But in any cases, it results many different world views within ONE religion alone, and this will cause the religion to split into smaller ones.

As for the "Death of Religion"? Probably not gonna happen given that it is part of human nature.

While religion will still play a big part in human society, the definition of religion might change in the near future. Instead of being "a sacred institution that provides spiritual relief", it might change into "a socializing institution that provides moral guidance", or something like that.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Phew. That's all for my post today. Hopefully you understood it LOL!


Till next time, I'll be studying, cheers~

A Conversation with Some Kids

"Come, join us. We can cleanse you off your sins. Oh what? You've never sinned in your life? It's okay, God made sure everyone of you are born a sinner, just so that He can clear your sins and show how great and kind He is."


There I was, sitting there idling. It was break time at the House of Joy, the kids, orphanages, were running around with biscuits in their hand, behaving just like any kid would.

They ran in circles, crawled under the tables, jumped, screamed, with their respective tutors and other kids. I'm sure they don't get to have that much fun usually, when everyone around is just as much depressed as the next kid they see in their small, closed, community.

"They are all Christians here in this house," I heard one of the caretakers said on the other day. I wanted to say something in response, but I just sat where I was, and gave in to a mild smile.

As my mind wandered, one of the kids in the living room beckoned for the other kids to join him at the window. The windows were big transparent planes, so there's little difficulty fitting everyone. Every kid in the room lined up across the windows, watching an unfolding incident somewhere across the highway just outside.

Smoke rose from a block of shops, or possibly some residential area, I wasn't sure as it was blocked by a row moderately high buildings. In any case, the smoke rose rapidly, forming a column in the air, a black column of dusts and soots.

Our initial reaction was that a fire had happened, some building must be burning up right now across the road. You don't get to see black smokes coming out from factories, so i presumed it must be a fire.

A kid asked me what was happening. I told him that the buildings over there are under fire. He saddened, turning over to the windows again. Then he asked again," What about the peoples in the building? Will they die?"

Well, being frank and to the point, I said," They'll die if they cannot manage to escape the building in time."

"Then that means they are dead lo, the smoke getting so large already."

I kept quiet after hearing that, not that there's anything I can say. I watched on, when another kid, a girl, turned and gave respond to the previous kid's comment.

"Don't say stupid things! The Lord Jesus Christ will save them. They will not die!"

I was kind of shocked, not of the sudden response, but I was surprised at how a 7 year-old girl can say such a thing.

Then, casually, I asked the girl," Do you really believe Jesus will save them from the fire?"

"Yes, of course. Why not? He is capable of everything, he'll make sure the peoples come out alive."

I was silenced of course. She was just a kid, what can I say?



Then the previous boy asked me all the sudden," Kor kor, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?"

I said," No, I was not brought up as a Christian."

"Then what religion are you?"

"Well, I don't really have a religion. Why?"

"Then if you don't have religion, why not believe in Jesus?"

Tough question, I thought. For a moment, I was conflicting within myself, because I'm afraid he wouldn't understand my reasoning, as complicated a matter as it is.

I took a deep breath, and said," Because I don't see a reason to. Why do you believe in Jesus then?"

He thought for a moment, clueless, then he gave me a shrug," Because they told me to."

Being just a lower primary school kid, that question was too hard for him to answer, of course. He wouldn't know why believe in Jesus, apart from the fact that he was taught that he MUST! Or bad things would happen to him.

I then asked, prodding further," If you don't know why you believe in something, then why believe it?"

Again, he look stunned, as if giving it a thought for the first time in his life. Then he just shook his head, and gave no answer.

I knew that question was beyond him ability to answer. So I laughed it off and gave him a pat on his head, folded my arms and sat back into the chair, wondering if this is how everyone got into it.



Ignorance in the face of reality?



Till next time, cheers~

Why Do You Believe?

Hey guys, it’s the first day of Chinese New Year!

Hope you are having a good time so far. Well, as for me, the morning was as usual, a visit to my grandma’s place and take Angpau la, nothing too fancy :)

But I’m having tons of free time in the afternoon so I reckon I should spend some time writing a blog article.



So, what’s up for this post? As you can see from the title, today I’m going to attempt to tackle one of the most philosophical questions of all time – “Does God exists?”

Now before proceeding to the main text, I should warn you that if you are a religious person and you have total belief in everything your religion teaches you, and you do not like your faith to be challenged or questioned, you ought to turn back and leave now, do this and thus your faith towards your religion shall be kept intact. Otherwise, proceed, read with an unbiased view, think, and you shall see the world differently, maybe not wholly, but you’ll be asking questions that you had not thought of after this.



Ready?
Here we go~



Does God exist?

A simple question with three words, and none of us were able to answer it correctly with the support of provable evidence.

Before trying to answer that question, let us try to define what is “God” in meaningful words.


So what is God to you? What do you know about God?

Well, I’m not going to go too far, again, the usual practice, I’m only going to take examples from the mainstream religions.

To the members of the Abrahamic faith, God is the “One”, the “Perfect”, the “Almighty”, the “(Put a title here)”, etc…

They describe God as an all-loving, kind, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite and perfect being.

And according to Christianity, God looks like human too (well, He looks like man to be precise because He was always depicted as a human with bushy white beards in paintings), that because God created humans based on his own image.

While according to Islam, God takes no form, He is too great to be put in paintings (and peoples say that a picture is worth more than a thousand words, how ironic is the fact that we are describing His being with our lowly languages.)

And the Gods they described is a God that had created the whole known universe, made the Earth, made every living organisms on this planet, and even interacted and interfered with human activities.

Okay, now that we had set the parameters, let’s move on by examining if this God exists.



First of all, I’m going to start with the God that created the known universe. It was said that in the beginning there was nothing, and the God created everything! How cool is that huh?!

This God created everything! Wow, awesome! Hmm… But the question is, does the universe need a creator?

A person with theological perspective would simply say, “If there’s no God, then how can EVERYTHING come from NOTHING?”

Common sense tells us that the second part of this argument is a strong argument, of course, it is beyond the physical laws to create something out of nothing, that’s just impossible, in our universe at least. But do you have to bring a creator into the argument?

Well one thing to consider is that there are many other existing theories on the origin of the universe and all of them were yet to be proven. But let’s say that God created the universe, then who created God? Do you mean to say, God as a being, came from nothing?

That just doesn’t make sense right? The universe must have a cause, and so do God if you were to put Him as part of the explanation. What is it then, that caused the God to exist? Surely it must be something else isn’t it?

Then again, for God to create the universe, He must not be governed by our universe’s law of physics, or else He wouldn’t have had the ability to do so. So there might be a possibility that God came from nothing, because even though it’s not physically possible in OUR universe, it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible outside our universe, as it might have been governed by a whole different set of physical laws.

So yes, I’m saying that there’s a possibility that our universe was created by a creator, which in human context is called “God”.

You might think that I am self-contradicting in my arguments, it doesn’t seem like I’m standing on either side of the argument. Yes, I am taking a neutral stance. The thing is, both the creator theories and the non-creator theories are equally viable, and none of them have more evidence than the other, why should I act like I know everything and decide that one of the MUST be correct and the other MUST be wrong?



Now, that aside, I’m going to talk about the God that seeded Earth with life.

This is a very interesting question, “Did God created Life?”

According to the Abrahamic religions, yes, God did.

In Christianity, God created all lives on Earth and even the first humans, Adam and Eve, in His 7 days of creation. Well I had addressed this topic on my other post Adam, Eve, Noah.

No, I don’t think God created all living creature as described in the Bible or any other religious scriptures, literally or not.

Why?

I’ll say it’s very arrogant of us to think that a God that created this vast universe would want to put some sort of life-forms on this tiny little blue dot in the backdrop of majestic stars and galaxies. Why would He?

You? A tiny little human? Created by God? Do you really think a being that had created this massive universe would even care to waste His time on decorating this small planet that can hardly be seen from the nearest star?

Why?

Because He just wanted peoples to worship Him? Doesn’t that make you a slave? Then don’t you think it’s unfair? To be born in this world, just to be a slave of worship?

Why would God need people to worship Him anyway? Does He have some self-esteem issues?  Has He been bullied by other Gods lately and needs assurance from us that He is Awesome?

Humans outlawed slavery a few centuries ago but yet they do not find this religious binding with God offensive against human rights?

I don’t know, you think for yourself.

But I can tell you, no matter how you would like to defend the theory that God created life as described in the religious scriptures, you’ll find that the burden of prove is on you.

How did you know God did it? Because that’s what the book said? How did you know what the book said was real? Because peoples that wrote the book said God told them? How did you know God told them at all? Because they insist God really told them even though they cannot prove it? WTF? Come on, children can tell better lies.

Anyway, back to the topic, did God really gave life universe, but not literally as the religious scriptures claimed?

Is it even possible for God to enter our universe, given that He cannot be expressed physically since He is infinite and timeless, and therefore incompatible with our universe?

It’s quite tempting to say God gave life, since scientists weren’t able to explain the origin of life, yet! But does that mean science cannot explain at all and that you really had no choice but to put God into the equation? Science is making progress, and there are new findings towards the ultimate explanation of the origin of life daily. The Earth was once “flat” too until someone proved it to be round and globular, what makes you think science will not find the explanation to origin of life?

I hope I had stimulated enough thoughts here so far…



Now, let’s move on to the “All-powerful, all-loving, just, perfect, omnipotent, omniscient” God that the Abrahamic religions have been talking about.

Take a look around the world, what do you see?

Billions of peoples suffering from famine and poverty.

What do you see?

Natural disasters creating more and more refugees.

What do you see?

Diseases, inherited, contracted, deadly, millions dead.

What do you see?

Wars, conflicts, religious crusades, threatening world peace.

What do you see?

Climate changes, humans on the brink of extinction.

What do you see?

Just tell me…

Do you see an all-loving God? Do you see a just God? Do you see an omnipotent, all-powerful God?

If God is all-loving, why are there still billions of kids of Africa suffering hunger? Does God love them not?

If God is just and treat all man equally, why are there billions of people who died undeservingly while we have mass murderers roaming around killing in the name of their religions? Why do peoples suffer diseases at all while most don’t? Is that fair at all? There were devoted Christians and Muslims that had cancers and died, is it fair for them that they had worship God for all their lives and suffer immense pain in return?

If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He use His powers to help those in need? Why doesn’t He give enough food to everyone on Earth so that the word “famine” may be removed from the dictionary? Why doesn’t He stop earthquakes and volcanic eruptions from hurting peoples? Why?

What is really happening? Is God on vacation?

There are only two possible explanations:

One, God is evil, unjust, maybe still all-powerful, but He doesn’t care, likes to incur natural disasters for fun, zaps you with lightning occasionally, puncture your car tires while you are in a rush, sends robbers to rob you even though you need the money more than the robbers do, makes your girlfriend breakup with you because she wanna date a hot guy she just met.

Two, there is no God.


Which one is more comfortable? The belief that there is a God that is looking at us laughing at our sufferings? Or the belief that there is no God and everything happens because it needed to?

I don’t know what you’d think, but let me ask you this…

If you had a religious family, and your family goes to church every weekend, make donations to the church, do services, and all the sudden one day your parents died in a car accident. What would you do?

Do you blame God? They were the nicest people around, and yet they had to die in this manner, was God out of His mind? Maybe you’d say God had a plan for them, but what about that little brother that is still lying in that cradle? Who’s gonna look after him? Did God planned him to be an orphan so that he may live His whole live not experiencing the love of a family? Is this fair for him? Why the special treatment? Why not make all of us orphans so that it is fair for that baby?

More questions than answer it seems…

So tell me, why do I have to believe that there is a God willing to offer us a hand when in need, when He can’t even help the other few billions people that deserves better out there?





So, there you go, that’s all I have to say for today. I apologize if you can’t agree with me, maybe you need to talk to me more, then you’ll understand. What I hope to achieve in this thing I’m doing is that, I want you to think.

What does that mean? Does that mean I think you’re not using your brain? No, of course not. But I want you to do is that I want you to think of what you believed in, and why do you believe it? Do you believe it just because you were brought up to believe it? Or do you believe it because there are sufficient reasons to believe in it?

Do you eat vege because your mom told you to eat it? Or do you eat vege because it’s good for you? That’s the question.



Till next time, cheers~

p.s.: Are you sincere?

Let me start by asking you this one simple question - Are you a sincere person?

Don't have to think too long. It's just a simple question... Or is it?

So most of you would say "yes", well that is no surprise and no doubt, in my mind, that you are being true to yourself in answering that question.

But what do you really know about sincerity? Do you really think what you do is really sincere?

What does sincere means anyway?

Quote the definition of sincere:
sin·cere (sn-sîr)
adj. sin·cer·er, sin·cer·est
1. Not feigned or affected; genuine: sincere indignation.
2. Being without hypocrisy or pretense; true: a sincere friend.
3. Archaic Pure; unadulterated.

To me, it means doing something with the right intention from the heart, not driven by extrinsic motivations, not driven by benefits it gives.

So imagine this, a person is a philanthropist, he does charity all the time, he donates money to organizations, he never hesitates to help those in need.

But there's one question you may ask, what is/are his motive(s)? 



One might say, if that person is a politician, his real motive is to gain popularity, to get public support, to buy the peoples' heart so that he can further strengthen his position and staying power in the world of politics.

So tell me, is that sincere? Well the answer is an obvious No! No explanation needed.



Well then what if the person is just a wealthy businessman who happens to have a lot of spare money?

His motive, like the politician, might also be to gain popularity. If he's really a business-minded person, he'll surely be taking advantages of the publicity he gets while he does charity to further promote the name of his company. I'm not saying that the person does charity just to get more publicity, he might really be a kind-hearted person who really wanted to help other peoples, but deep down inside him he knows that doing charity will bring himself collateral benefits, and that's what motivates him.

Now then, can you label this business man as a sincere person? It's debatable, but surely more people would agree that "No" should be the answer. 



What if this person is just a typical person you will find? A normal middle-class person, let's say, with Buddhism as his/her religion. Tell me then do you think that person is sincere in doing those charities?

Most of you might say:

"Yes of course he's a sincere person! How could you question that? He doesn't have any hidden agendas."

True, to an extend. Let me ask you, "what drives him to be a philanthropist?"

Your answer: "Religion?"

"There! Gotcha!"

"Huh?!"

You see, that is what motivates him. As a Buddhist, he believes in Karma. What he does is, while in his charity act, he gives benefits to others, and in this process he hopes to collect enough merits in his life, so that HE himself can reap the benefits later.

"What benefits?" You asked.

Well as a Buddhist he would have believed that when a person do good things, more good things will happen to that person; when a person had collected enough merits, that person will be promoted to a higher dimension and possibly achieving "Moksha" (The highest happiness, free from suffering).

So in the end, what he or she really hopes for is to get the benefits for himself/herself. So that means that person has a motive, or rather, hidden agenda. Now tell me, can you consider this as a sincere act then? Well my answer is... No!

I don't see any difference that sets this person apart from the previous two mentioned above, the only difference is that this person will only receive the benefits when he/she is dead(which is not much of a use anyway).



Well let's move on to another classic example. 

A Christian doing charity? This is so much easier. 

The answer is... an obvious... No!

What might be that person's motivation? He/She might be doing charity just to please the God, which is a motive anyway. He/She might be buying himself/herself a ticket to Heaven and eternal joy, which itself is also a motive.

You see, whatever philanthropy that person does it all goes down to getting benefits for himself. Try asking a Christian this question,"Why do you do good things and help other peoples?".

I'm VERY sure the answer will be something like this,"Because I want to go to Heaven."

That's the typical answer you'll get. If not eitherway, it will be the "Propagating religion" answer, which itself is much worse in terms of sincerity.

So tell me, am I wrong at labeling this person as insincere? 


So...
Extrinsic sincerity? Intrinsic sincerity?



What do you really believe in?

Do you believe in doing good things so that good things will happen to you? Or do you believe in doing good things because it is good?

My philosophy is - If you want to do something, let that something be the reason, and not something else.

I study because studying gives you knowledge, not because I want to show to other peoples that I'm smart. I play music because I like playing music, not because I want to show off my skills to the world. I do charity because I like to help other peoples, not because I want to gain popularity or fame.

And let me end by quoting something from a Boyzone's song :) - "Don't love me for fun, girl ... ... Love me for a reason, and let the reason be love"


So ask yourself, what do you really want?



Ask yourself...






That's all for tonight. Till next time, cheers~

Haiti Earthquake and The Rise of Fucktards

.

Hey guys, first of all, sorry if my post title sounded a bit too offensive, but I have no choice but to use the most accurate word of description here to vent out my anger towards this recent inhumane remarks I heard.
Let me start by apologizing to anyone who would have expected me to follow the Haiti earthquake news closely. I'm sorry I didn't, I was too engrossed with my college assignments and also another recent controversy here in Malaysia on the "Allah" word usage. In fact I was about to write a post on that topic but this incident leapfrogged the priority list. 

My condolences to the Haitians who lost their loved ones in the massive earthquake. Although I cannot possibly understand what the victims might feel now, I will still surely grieve for their losses, the estimated 200,000+ peoples there that perished in that disaster.

Now... To move on to the main point of this post. First of all, let me introduce to you the F***tard in the title that I was referring to...

Meet Pat Robertson, a Televangelist whose job is to use the television to communicate the Christian faith.


Shortly after the earthquake in Haiti, he made it on news channel in the States and gave very inhumane, cold-blooded comments on that eventful disaster. 

Here's the video where he gave his remarks:


So what did he really said?

Here's what he said in that video, in two separate sections:
"The earthquake might be a blessing in disguise, there might be a massive rebuilding of that country."
"The Haitians made a pact with the Devil long time ago to drive out the French, they are cursed forever afterwards."

Here's what he really meant for each sentence respectively:
"It's good news that the earthquake happened, they're screwed anyway and they needed to rebuild their poor country."
"Serves them right, this is God's punishment on them for defying God's will and serving the Devil."

And don't tell me he doesn't mean that! I swear he did and he did not even have the slightest sympathy for the victims of the earthquake. Bullshit!

Here's a video on the reaction towards Pat Robertson's comments:


Boy, that guy there was pretty pissed. I would if I were him too!



So in Haiti we have little girls like this one who lost their loved ones in that earthquake, suffering immense mental and even physical pain now.

And somewhere up north in the US we have F***tards like this guy saying," In your face you muthafuckas, you truly deserves it!"


I can't help but to wonder, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO THIS WORLD?



Till next time, cheers~

Adam, Eve, Noah

Hey guys! SPM is over, WOOHOO!

But so far I'm not feeling the after-exam mood yet, probably because I studied non-stop during the last two month and is not used to this new daily routine. Meh...

Anyways, updates coming soon. I do have one event which was nearly two months ago that I will blog about - MyCJN Dance for the Planet, and also a very recent one which was the Candlelight Vigil. HAZ TO FINDZ TIMEZ AND PATIENZE TO UPLOAD ZE PHOTOZ!

Anyway, I'm starting off my first post after SPM with this article titled Adam, Eve, Noah as promised.

Oh, if you're from an Abrahamic religion, don't flame me straight away. Instead, give my opinions a thought. Think! That's why God gave you and me a brain. Think!


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Have you ever wondered how life began? And why vast diversity of species exist?

Over thousands of years, theories of the origin of life have been popping up from various places around the world. Explanations were sometimes non-logical, and funny even sometimes.

In Chinese mythology, Nu-Wa created humans from clay.

On the first day she created chickens. On the second day she created dogs. On the third day she created sheep. On the fourth day she created pigs. On the fifth day she created cows. On the sixth day she created horses. On the seventh day she began creating men from yellow clay, sculpting each one individually, yet after she had created hundreds of figures in this way she still had more to make but had grown tired of the laborious process.

In Greek mythology, the Titan Prometheus also created humans from clay and then gave them fire.

In Egyptian mythology, the God Khnum made human with clay from River Nile. (What's wrong with these guys? They have clay fetish or something?)

But of all the stories about the origin of life, perhaps the most well-known and most widely accepted is the creation of Adam and Eve by the God of the Genesis as written in the Bible.



As stated in the Bible, the God, during 7 days of Creation, made a pair of every single species of animal on earth, and added Adam and Eve (as if it was an after thought) on the 6th day. I'm not sure whether the "one pair of every animal" is correct because I have not read the Bible, correct me if I'm wrong but it doesn't really matter as you'll see later.

And so, according to Christianity, God had a hand in the diversity of species. He created every living thing in the world, including the gazillion sub-species of the amoeba genus, even though just a few of them would have served a common niche in the ecosystem.



But there's a flaw in this theory, that is, to accept the 7 Days of Creation, you will have to accept the Theory of Evolution too, which so far contradicts each other and has sparked endless debates throughout the century ever since Darwin published his "Origin of Species".

Why? Because if you ask me, God could not have created the billions of species of life on earth. Okay that's not a very good argument, nevermind let's put that aside. But, there are indeed observable micro-evolutions happening around us, and that is called genetic variations and mutations.

I'm going to show you an example of micro-evolution, take a swarm of mosquito for instance, spray repellent at them and most of them die but not all. Why? Because of minor variations among them that causes the insecticide to only be effective to most of them except for some mosquitoes that have higher level of tolerance and immunity. And the surviving mosquitoes breed amongst themselves to produce a new generation of mosquitoes with immunity to that particular insecticide. This is natural selection in action, kill the weak, only the strongest will survive.

Same thing occurs to some viruses, we have various virus strains that have mutated from previous forms, that's why new virus outbreak always comes first before a vaccine can be introduced. Natural selection selected the weaker viruses to die under our immune systems and the stronger viruses that remained are mutated into different and deadlier forms.

Of course, some might say argue micro-evolution doesn't explain the Theory of Evolution at all. But why not? An observable evolution takes a very long time, modern humans have only been around for like 100,000 years, or less than 10,000 years according to the Bible. Given enough time, I'm VERY sure that this will happen.

Try doing this, save a dollar a day and keep it in a drawer or something, and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you if you keep doing this daily, you're bound to save up to a thousand dollars in around three years time, right?. Apply this anology to evolution, after years and years of all those micro-evolution, an obvious change is bound to happen to a species, and that species will evolve into an entirely new species. If this really happens one day, will anyone still deny evolution?



Alright, anything that happens between the time of Adam and Eve to the time of Noah will not be brought up as it will not matter. When God got pissed of humans and decided that He will flood the earth(still unproven by science BTW), he asked Noah and his family to build a large ark and have the land animals gathered on board before the flooding begins.

Yes it did specify LAND animals only, but there's also a flaw. Noah's ark was huge, approx 140 meters long, 25 meters wide and 15 meters high, but not infinite. So obviously there's no conceivable way to have every single species of land animal on earth to board the ark. So how can you explain the diversity of land animals in the world today? Evolution has to be the key.

Imagine this, there are nearly 6,000 species of mammals in the world, 8,000 species of reptiles, and 9,000 species of birds. Let's be conservative and say only around 100 species or birds are non-avian. So that still makes around 12,000 species of large land animals to be saved, times that by two only(I am not including the fact that Noah did brought 7 pairs of each clean animals on board), and we have 24,000 large animals to be fitted on board. Of course, I'm excluding the fact that there are still 25,000 species of mollusc, 5,000 species of earthworms and 1,364,013 species of other land dwelling invertebrates such as insects and arachnids.

You do the math and tell me a pair of every living species today can board the ark. Please!

Of course, we have not account for the food supply Noah would need to feed the animals. It is said that Noah remained in the ark for a whole year, so the food supply would definitely be much more heavier than the animal loads. So where did he stored his food supply again if the ark was full of animals?

Side fact:

Using wood to construct a ship as big as Noah's ark is not practical, even with the technology of the Industrial Revolution when the last of big wooden ships were built. Wood by itself is not a very strong material, it bends when force is applied, especially so the longer the wood. Ships pitch up and down when it is hit by waves(obviously), a violent wave would force a long wooden ship to bend and tear the ship into two pieces at the middle.



So tell me if Noah had superior technology that only came in thousands of years later? Or was the Bible wrong and Noah built with metals instead of wood? Food for thought.

Okay so evidently, Noah couldn't have fit in all the animals. So to explain the diversity of species, we must thus use evolution. That the surviving species on Noah's ark must have evolved and divided into a lot of subspecies after the flood. And apparently all this evolution took place in less than 6,000 years - 8,000 years ago?

So tell me, if evolution happened long time ago at a very fast rate, then why can't we observe that happening now? One of the facts must be incorrect. Take a guess?



Another flaw in Noah's ark story was that given that only 2 pairs (or 7 pairs for clean animals) of each species is on the ark, it will contradict with the variety of genes present in the animals today. One pair of animals of the same species has only a tiny pool of genes available for their next generation. This is called a bottleneck population.

Imagine this:


Although prior to the flood the gene pool is big, when a pair of animal of the same species that were brought on the ark and were then bred afterwards, all their offsprings and subsequent generations will have the same if not similar genetic materials.

If we had the same genetic materials, we'll all be looking very alike today, all our genetic materials came from Noah's family. And we will be very prone to diseases as all of us have the same level of immunity. Same thing applies to other animals, as soon as a deadly virus starts spreading amongst a population of animals, none of them will survive as they have the same level of immunity. And we'll see mass extinctions of species of land animals due to microbial life attacks, but this is not happening, so I assumed all terrestial animals including humans have a large gene pool and some of the genes have stronger immunity against certain diseases.

So how could you explain, again, the vast variety of gene in a gene pool of a species living today? There can only be two explanations:

One - Evolution happened in a smaller scale, which is micro-evolution, and the variety of gene pool of a species came when mutations happened to their genetic materials.

Two - Noah's Ark story never happened, it was always evolution all the way.



Phew... This must be one of the longest article I've ever written. But what am I hoping to convey to you? Why do I write this?

It's simple, I'm merely saying, to accept the 7 Days of Creation you must also without doubt accept the Theory of Evolution too because any other ways of explaining the shortcomings of the Bible would make far less sense. i.e: Divine intervention, blah blah blah...

So yes, evolution is a therefore a proven theory, directly by science and indirectly by the Bible, it doesn't matter if 7 Days of Creation really happened or not.



Lastly, I'm quoting the late Carl Sagan, one of the most brilliant minds in astronomy and cosmology. He once talked a little about the origin of the universe and God. It goes something like this:

If we are to explaing the origin of universe by saying that God created the universe, then we are left with a harder question to answer. Who/What created God? If something or someone created God, then who created THAT Creator? By explaining the universe in this manner doesn't really explain anything at all!

But what if we explain by saying God was always there and He is timeless and eternal? If you can accept the fact that God has always been there before the universe and time began, then why is it that you cannot accept that the universe is eternal and has always been there? Do we really need a creator to explain the origin of universe?

And so I'm using the same argument to present the case of Evolution. By believing the Bible you must also believe that evolution is true, otherwise the stories in the Bible will not be true. If you can believe that evolution is true, then why not believe that evolution has been going on for billions of years instead of 10,000 years? I really don't see any reason why we need both the Bible and the Theory of Evolution when one of them is sufficient to explain everything.



So that's pretty much everything I have to say now. I'm expecting peoples to disagree with me, it's okay I understand :) . Thank you for reading and till next time, cheers~

Odd, Isn't It?

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Childrens, generations of tomorrow. They have massive amount of untapped potential, yes. They are the ones that will inherit this earth one day. The ones that will lead humankind to the next step in our history. The ones that will determine our fate as a species in the future.



But... what future?

Do we want a... Peaceful future?

Do we want a...Secular future?

Do we want a...Religious future?

or maybe some of us might say we want t greener future.



"What do we want?" That's the question. Of course, being a sane human, like everyone else around, I want a future where the earth is green, the world is in peace, the society is morally perfect and science is advanced.

Then again, think about it, are we heading that way? Or is it the other way? The earth being mutilated to death by us, nuclear war between nations, murderers walking around the streets as if it's a norm, science growth being stunted by political and religious interests.

By the looks of it, we're more in the latter on the fragile balance between ideal and cataclysmic future.

But if this happens, who's to blame? The childrens of today that will be the leaders of the future? Or us, their educators in their early upbringing?



Well, logic tells us it's their fault they ruined the world, they had the powers to change, to make it a better place for us, but they didn't and instead opted for the more destructive route.

Then again, to every problem, we have to examine it to the very roots before making any claims. The root of the problem is us, today's generation, today's leaders, today's educators, today's parents.

Well, I'm not going to talk about all of the problems, instead I'm just going to bring up one which is interesting : - Religious Indoctrination of Children.



*Again, if you had seen this post , you will more or less know that I'm not a big fan of religion.


To start off, take a look at this picture...



Hmm... Cute bunch of babies eh? Well, their so pure and innocent, and they have no idea at all what's happening around in this world.


Alright, let's pretend they live in Malaysia, and all of them are born in different family. Let's define their religion according to the religion of their parents shall we?


Ahh... Not that bad eh? 4 babies of different religion lying together in a same bed, how warm and fussy does it makes you feel inside :)

But did you notice something strange? Nevermind... Let's move on to another picture...

What if we define their musical taste according to the musical preference of their parents?



Oh...Kay... Again, let's move on to the next picture.

This time we categorize them to their favourite football team according to the football team their parents support.



Ahhuh... Looks a bit odd, isn't it?

The next one... This time we define them according to their parents' politics orientation.



:O

Wait, there's more...Political parties according to their parents.


What if their parents are racist, sexist, or sadist? Or just atheist? 



Hmm.... What do you think?

To a normal Malaysian society (and most societies in the world), the first picture (the religion one) probably looks fine, and the others are just plain absurd, we can't possibly tell what football team do they like or what political parties do they prefer at this age. 

But can I ask... What's the difference between those and religion?



Think about it for a second...



We do not force our children to like a genre of music, or which football team to cheer for, and yet we're forcing our children to believe in religion at such a young age when they have absolutely no idea what is religion?

That's Religious Indoctrination!



Of course, I'm not saying that religion is a bad thing. But shouldn't the children be given their right to choose what they want to believe?

A Muslim child was brought up in a family of Islamic faith, but he chose to believe in Christianity during his teenage, that's his right, right? (No pun intended)

Then why in the world should you forbid him from changing his faith? Was it because Allah would punish him? But if he embraces Christianity and pledges his allegiance to the Christianity God, then would the Christianity God protect him from Allah's punishments? Or are they the same God? If so why would he mind if we're Christians or Muslims? (I know this sounds silly, but I still don't understand how account transfer works in religion, since we have no contracts with God(s))



Again, what if a person choses not to believe? Is there a problem? You can switch hobbies anytime, you can choose to have Italian or Japanese or Chinese food, or none of them. But why religion cannot be subjected to the same freedom of choices? Isn't it all based on personal preferences?

Again, I ask you to think about it...



Now this brings me to another strange phenomenon. When you meet another person and then started a conversation, for example, on the topic of musical preferences, or politics, or etc, there are bound to be differences in opinion. What happens next? You have debates, critics, both voicing out what they think. And in the end of the day, it's not a big deal, we go home and nothing happens. (Watch what happens when you criticize religion in this country)

But why can't religion be subjected to debates and critics too? Is there anything so special about it that it's a taboo to speak about it? Does it mean that when God is involved in a topic we should all just keep quiet and be subjected to his will and mercy?

Does God even exist anyway? Or are we arguing over an imaginary being? (To be talked about in a future post)



We have a choice in religion people!!! We can choose what we want to believe!

The only thing (In my opinion) in this world that cannot be subjected to debates and critics is racial issues. Common sense? You are born a Chinese or Malay or African or Caucasian, you can't change the fact, you didn't have a choice, that what makes this topic sensitive if criticized or debated, that's what makes it special.

But you're not born Christian or Muslim, no, you have a choice to choose what to believe in! But  yet many parents are depriving their children of their right to choose, instead asking them to believe what the parents believed in (without rational thoughts).

If your father forces you to listen to Elvis Presley, how would you feel?

It's okay if you liked it too, but what if you prefer rock music? Would you feel oppressed, as if you don't have freedom?



I've seen so many children being brainwashed to be so committed into their religion that I sometimes think "What the hell is wrong with this world?"

Please, if you're a rational being, you would have thought like that too...

Sorry to say, but we as humans have much more important and better things to do than to pray to God hoping that everything will just fix themselves on their own. Imagine the time you spent on that is spent elsewhere, for example saving the environment, I'm sure it'll make a difference in this world.


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This post was inspired by a documentary called "Jesus Camp" released in the year 2006. It talks about a Summer Bible Camp in the USA. I can't help but to feel sorry for the kids. 

This is the link to the first video of the 8 parts video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhjIlhAShuU)

Please, watch it too if you have time. I beg you, and you'll understand why I wrote this.



And of course, I also wrote this because of a deep personal problem that I'm facing now, and I have no idea what should I do. If you think you're close enough with me and want me to share my problem with you, please do tell me (in the comments or the chatbox or whatever)... I will tell you personally when i have the chance...


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So... Why so serious guys? Religion is just another way of life, and if we can make fun of it, laugh and still get on with life, that's real quality living.

Atheists even make fun of themselves too but it's all in the name of humour :)Your turn?


Till next time, cheers~

21.9.09 Episode 1: International Day of Peace, His story and mine

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21st of September, The International Day of Peace, has come a long way till today.

In the year 1981, the UN General Assembly declared, in a resolution sponsored by Costa Rica, that the third Tuesday of September every year as the International Day of Peace devoted to commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace.

The holiday was celebrated, albeit not in a global scale, the UN itself seemed reluctant to push the idea of a day of peace where arms shall be put aside and peoples are allowed to think for themselves. The idea grew cold, peoples were saying," A day of peace and ceasefire will never happen on earth."

Until this man came into the picture.



Meet Jeremy Gilley, born English, previously an actor. He was the founder of the charity One Peace Day that started this global tsunami.

Jeremy Gilley has spent the last ten years promoting the idea of peace, non-stop. He was the one who got the United Nations General Assembly to put forward a resolution declaring the 21st of September as the official International day of Peace after almost two years of meeting peoples and writing letters and so on. Why on the 21st of September? Well, first of all, the original Peace Day was in September, and for the number 21, it is Jeremy's grandfather's favourite number.

His story is well documented during the last ten years, for he wanted the world to see how by pushing this one day alone, can change the world.

I've posted the video below, uploaded by the One Peace Day foundation. To be honest, of all the documentaries I've seen, this is really the first one that got me feeling touched. So please, I know the video is long(1 hour 20 minutes), but it'll worth every single minute and I'm sure by the end of the video you'll feel that you're contribution to the earth is just so tiny all this while.Yeow Minyi, who is ever so dedicated to making the world a better place. And always end up doing funny-funny nonsense  :P Joking lar...

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~