In 6 Hours...

My eldest sister Wendy will be leaving Singapore for the U.S for one year and a half for work. You probably don't know what that means. It means one and a half years of peace. Hahaha.

I don't know if I will miss her. I might miss her entertainment. Whether is it her singing the Full House song off-key, or purposely singing 'Steady as she goes' in some weird entertaining style of hers. Both Linda and I bet she and Mom will cry at the airport. In 6 hours we shall be proven right.

Anyway I have no worries. She has brought along The Most Important Book On This Earth which I lent her. But she'd better read it over there.

Anyway I have lived through days, weeks and even months of not seeing her, like a few years ago. Somehow during that time either I was really busy or she was really busy, and I remember not seeing her for a long time, and thus we didn't really speak much.

Though thank God that has changed, during the last one or two year or so. We are back to one big happily laughing family, and we are back to teasing our siblings, for our messiness, acne, and makeup. Haha. Inside joke.

See you again one and a half years later!

Crash (4/5)

Great show about many racially prejudiced individuals, mostly from the whites to blacks. Even the black characters, themselves, too have racial prejudices. One of them remarked that he would 'never steal from his own people.' The whole film revolves around these characters, about 8 of them, and seamlessly link them together. A lot of social commentary here. I think my platoon mates should watch this show because they are so racist. And I think racists are ignorant people.

One very subtle yet important point the film makes is, that while the whites may be racially prejudiced, it could have been fuelled by the blacks themselves who do understand this, yet 'feed the flames', as one character remarked, causing more intense prejudice. At one point of the show, two black characters were lamenting how the white people seemed to 'know everything about them even before they opened their mouths', implying the prejudice of many whites. Yet minutes later, in a bid to provoke the whites, they stole a couple's car, thus 'feeding the flames', and causing the whites to hate the black community even more. It is a vicious cycle, and to get out of this mutual hatred it is very difficult, as the rest of the film shows.

Army Discussions

On Zhou Xun:

*bunk discusses about Zhou Xun*
M: Wah, I tell you, if Zhou Xun is my girlfriend, I promise I will never hurt her...
W: So you mean if its another girl, you will hurt her la?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On racial harmony

Y: Singapore should really encourage racial harmony.
D: Okay.
Y: Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Singapore soccer league team

M: I challenge you. Name me any players from Woodlands Wellington FC.
S: Muhammad, Hafiz and Abdul.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just Follow Law

Felt this was a pretty entertaining show. No Mark Lee and company, so expect less vulgarities spoken. Starring instead Gurmit Singh and Fann Wong. Fann's performance was very good, I feel, given that I have never seen her acting in a comedy before, and she had to act 'rough' and chor lor.

Movie's basically to tell us that the law need not and should not be followed so strictly under special circumstances where a higher principle applies. Like how the security guard rigidly refuse the fire engine to park at the reserved VIP slot because it is not supposed to. Also specially criticizing how the public sector works by 'black and white' which makes for inefficient work. Other than that... the movie was alright.

The body switch sub-plot was basically there to provide the laughs.

Exhibiting truth in an age of religious apathy

Went for a multi-racial, multi-religious trail on Wednesday. It left me deep in thoughts. We passed by that Armenian Church but never went in. Only went to 3 places: Thian Hock Keng, Sultan Mosque and Central Sikh temple. Along the way, there's this tour guide, who is quite knowledgeable about religions, though many of his interpretations I must disagree.

He kept saying 'actually, religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are very similar', and he spends most of the time emphasizing that they are very similar. He even say that in Islam, Ibrahim sacrificed Ishmael, and it is similar in the bible where Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Similar? I see a big difference here. Even a historical event with historical persons like Virgin Mary was interpreted by him as being 'manifested' also in Hinduism. He clings to the idea that there is one God who reveals and manifests himself in many religions. But one thing wrong already, not all religions believe in one God. Buddhism has no Creator. Hinduism is polytheistic/pantheistic. Judaism does not recognise the Son of God. Christianity believes in the Trinity. There is only one God in Islam, and his messenger is Muhmammad. These religions are so different! One of them must be right, or all of them are wrong, and something else is.

The tourguide was a Roman Catholic, though he freely admits that he has never seriously read the bible until the age of 40 and how he loves imparting religious values to his children. I know there is much beauty in spirituality; afterall God made Man. But truth is truth; truth is not pragmatism; truth is not defined as being something useful to society. Like many people, religion to him is like a means to make people good, not a way of finding the true God. In that case, any religion will do. Non-religion will also work.

Relativism must die. It is the ideology that is cultivating much religious apathy in this world.

That is the first hindrance to belief. The second hindrance to belief, and I am quite sure I am right, is that Christians themselves are not exhibiting truth in their lives! Christians, on one hand claims to have known the truth of God, yet not many exhibit this in their lives. I am also shooting myself as I say this. You claim to know the Truth of God? But you remain ignorant. Have you any idea what that means? Have you any idea what you are supposed to exhibit to the watching world? You yourself could be the very reason someone refused to believe, for they see no truth in us! Can the next time a big news happen on the front page it is because of something glorious and worthy of God's name, and not blasphemy, not controversy, not falsehood and lies by people who claim to be Christians? The Muslims are devout - they will not even let their Koran touch the floor. The Sikhs are devout - you are to cover your head and remove footwear. What do you see different in a church? Different, yes; you see something worse. Everything is allowable. And it is true - it should be a blessing still, yet it is a curse for us. We are not judged by traditions and acts that lead to death and are godless acts. But that does not mean we actively do the opposite like we see in some Christians dressing in whatever ways they wish, and behaving in however as they have interpreted, because there are no outwardly restrictions? Does the Church influence the culture, or does the culture influence the Church?

That is why Christians must resist. First relativism, and second, an active reformation of their lives in accordance to knowledge - the truth of God. And it will not happen until we Christians turn back to the bible, and stop freely interpreting things ourselves.

Until then, we can only blame ourselves, at least in part, for religious apathy.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I have finally bought the book Holiness by J.C. Ryle. Went to Bethesda bookshop just now to help my sis collect some books. Now I have some serious studying to do, and it will probably keep me occupied for the next few months. Funny though, I went around the entire bookshop and only when I came to the last section (the section nearest the door, I should have seen it first!) then I found this book I've been looking for.

Happiness

Why is it that when I meet someone whom I wish well, I would care for his or her happiness?
Why is it that the first thing I messaged back to the person who had just received his results, is 'Are you happy with it?'
What is so important about happiness?
Is happiness necessarily something everyone strives for?
Or something that everyone ought to strive for?
And ultimately, in what, or in whom, shall I have the final happiness, the true joy, the greatest blessedness?

'The greatest happiness is for the mind to attain God.' - Saint Thomas Aquinas

Great Speeches

I've got this army friend who is very into self-improvement books. Over these months I have seen him read on books giving instructions like 'How to make people like you' and those kind of topics. And recently he brought along this book on 'Great Speeches.' It was quite an interesting book, and is actually quite beneficial and the least of all his books which reeks of self-improvement ideas, if it were not for his purpose of trying to speak well with this book. I am thus convinced that any book can become rubbish if you had a purpose which is rubbish. Inside it were (surprise!) sermons alongside political speeches and so on. The sermons are by Jesus of Nazereth (Sermon of the Mount), by John Calvin, John Wesley, Billy Graham, Karl Barth, Jonathan Edwards etc.

The one by Jonathan Edwards made me heavy-hearted. I believe it was a small adapatation from 'Sinners in the hands of an angry God'. And it taught about God's wrath. And Edwards was telling his congregation that there are some who are listening to his very sermon and feeling so 'at ease with himself' and even telling himself that he wasn't the one Edwards was describing, but they are hanging 'like a spider' on a thread. Then he compared New England to the biblical city of Sodom, whom we all know was destroyed by God. I felt it was a timeless truth. Even as OCH taught on Sunday that we are to live each day of our lives knowing that the wrath of God can come anytime, I know there could be some in our midst who did not take this seriously. Edwards said that it would be very miserable to find our brother sitting next to us suffer that fate.

And then there was this section called 'Trials' where people come up with great speeches when being tried unjustly, and not suprisingly, Martin Luther was there at the Diet of Worms. 'I shall not recant... unless proven otherwise by Scripture or reason. Here I stand. God help me. Amen.'

But then I was quite shocked to see that Job was in there too, and he was in a trial against God. Particularly when the book is trying to glorify those who are being tried unjustly. In this case, it is Job, which is so wrong and taken out of context, because the Book of Job is trying to tell us Job is self-righteous in his trial against God, exactly the opposite this book is telling us. If we had read the bible we would know that Job's self-righteousness did not stand well against the righteousness of God. But alas, this is not a Christian book. Haha.

And then there was kind of a small debate among us about Bioethics. There was this person called Leon Kass who argued against the 'Brave New World' of human cloning. I agree a lot with this man. He argued that intrinsically humanity knows it is wrong for human cloning. That is his 'moral' argument, apart from his 'rational' arguments. He also said that there can be no sufficient reason to explain 'the horrors of father-daughter incest (even with consent), rape, murder, cannibalism etc). Which is so true, isn't it? What is stopping us from rape? What is stopping us from murder? Everyone says it is 'innate'. And everyone wants to give a naturalistic and rational answer to that which is innate and ultimately, moral. You cannot! You wish to say that our DNA had written these moral codes of law? Maybe. But who wrote it? And why do only homosapiens have this code written? How does one explain by reason? I doubt anyone can answer this.

My Girl

Thanks to Ernie for lending me this show. I have just finished watching this show. I must say it was good, though I almost gave up watching after only the first episode because the lead actress (Lee Da Hae) was too act-cute. But as I watched on, I found the plot quite interesting. And acutally Lee Da Hae can act very well. Unlike most other korean shows, where it gets draggy towards the end, this show actually got more interesting towards the end.

Lee Da Hae plays Joo Yoo Rin, who is gifted at lying. In the early episodes she got to know Seol Gong Chan (Lee Dong Wook), who engaged her help to be his fake sister in order to revive his dying grandfather. Yoo Rin grew very close to his family, who by then thought she was the real sister. When Gong Chan gave up hope of finding his real sister, he wants Yoo Rin to stay by his side forever. Soon, the Grandfather found out his granddaughter was a fake, and so sent Yoo Rin away, making her promise that she would never meet Gong Chan or see his family again. The pair had a tearful departure at the airport, with Gong Chan realizing she was gone forever only after she had left.

2 years had passed. Gong Chan has been tracking down Yoo Rin these 2 years. They finally met when he found out she was working in a tour agency. Gong Chan falls out with his grandfather after he insisted in pursuing Yoo Rin. Unknown to Gong Chan, Kim Se Hyun (played by Park Shi Yeon) had found a man who knew the location of the real sister who is still alive. This man turns out to be Yoo Rin's father. Se Hyun then meets Yoo Rin, and makes her confess to the family. To everyone's shock, Yoo Rin 'confessed' that she was the mastermind behind the whole plan, and for this reason she cannot be with Gong Chan. Gong Chan refused to believe her, and told her to stop lying. Yoo Rin told him to stop looking for her again. Both are devastated.

Soon after Grandfather learnt that Yoo Rin had lied in her 'confession' in order to bring Gong Chan back to him and reunite his family. He then gave her permission to be with his grandson. They finally found each other in the end and were allowed to be together.

"Love cannot be lied." - Joo Yoo Rin

Extreme

There are basically two extreme groups of Christians. I told X he belonged to one group: the one who finds himself so heavily burdened by sin that they despair and seldom trust in the finished and completed work of Jesus Christ. And the other group is this: the one where everyone is so sure of their own salvation that pastors need to keep warning them to re-examine themselves.

You know something is wrong...

with this world.

when a pastor writes a book.

and inside this book is this title.

'Rearing Masculine Boys and Feminine Girls'.

I have just committed literary sucide

Just now very funny. Got a girl borrowed handphone from me. Then she made a call. Then she asked whether she could send SMS. I said yes. But she used my phone for a good 15 minutes at least... making dunno how many calls. But it's ok.. my phone bills are usually capped at $30. And when I got back my phone, it was so oily I had to wipe the oil away. Yucks...

Then waited for Wei Sen for almost 2 hours... but nevermind, he didn't do that on purpose. Must teach him how to communicate better... Don't just SMS me, and when I call he never picks up.

Went to the library while waiting to borrow a book, since I am going on exercise from wednesday to friday and there should be some free time to read on the vehicle. Not conducive enough for bible study though, so I thought a philosophy book would be appropriate while I wait to see which Christian book I want to read (I'm looking for a book with in-depth study on the character of God, either this, or a book on the Old Testament.), after completing True Spirituality recently. That is one literary suicide already...

The second one is the book I've just borrowed from library, Thomas Aquinas' selected writings. If you don't know, his writings has influenced much of Christian thought, and it is just amazing how this guy's mind works. He is one of the 33 Doctors of the Catholic Church. In this book, he explores issues like 'good acts', 'free will', 'creation' and many other issues.

Good luck for my second literary suicide.

Node Outing

Today was node outing with the army guys. No Jurong camp, no PT, no ranks, just plain civilian shirt and trousers. And 1SG Cheung gamely said we don't have to call them and the officers by rank today ("Sergeant", or "Sir"), which resulted in a 'Yes, Cheung!' response from one of the men, to the amusement of all of us. Basically we pretty much enjoyed ourselves because this is nothing like army environment at all, and I am so happy to just play Amazing Race for the whole stretch of road from City Hall to Orchard Road. Makes me feel so hopeful for that ORD day. 9 more months...and I will be like this forever. Freedom...

Ok, we actually came across a group of Koreans and we approached them because we kenna a forfeit that requires us to take a photo with 5 strangers. But there were about 8 of them. They look very ordinary, and for once, I realized that there are actually koreans whose parents are not genetically perfect. Wahaha. What I mean is there are no Song Hye Kyos or Rains there. And what made me laugh out loud was that Sgt PPG actually politely pushed away 3 of the guys in order for us to take photos with the 5 korean girls. Wahahaha!! And he later explained that he did that because they couldn't really understand English and he cannot be bothered to explain slowly to them (and well, we were in a race.) Still it was so comical... We thanked them and I wanted to shout 'Kamsahmida!'. But alas I was too shy. Maybe if the girls are cuter I would :X Something like this:

And we played 'Shi Zi Lu Kou'. The last food item required us to find the food 'Skin'. And nobody had any idea what the hell it was. It was pure chance that we actually decided to go to Paragon Basement 1 (out of all the places in Orchard Road), and indeed, there was this Japanese store whose menu read 'Skin' as one of the items. I doubt the rest of the teams got this one right, and we couldn't believe our luck. In the end, our team won the race.

We ended off the afternoon with lunch at Fish and Co. The fish and chips there is really oily and big and made me so full and I hate it, though I forced myself to consume all of it. Being all guys there, you can imagine the amount of jokes made to those female waitresses...Some of us ordered 'The best Fish and Chips in town!' and then this girl came over and asked, 'Who ordered fish and chips?', to which Sgt Nuah answered, 'Is it The Best?' to the amusement of that lady. Pure entertainment. And then Sgt J was like, 'You know why she serve me drink first?' when the lady was gone. (Actually it was because he ordered first...duh) Everyone can't be bothered to answer him, until the lady came back again, and I purposely asked Sgt J loudly, 'Yah, why ah? Why she serve you first ah?' He was super embarrassed! His expression was priceless.

Overall, it was a pretty nice time to spend some time outside with Trunk 2 company.