God

Charmaine gave me seemingly very pissed off answers to my half-joke of a post "Daydreaming" so im writing this post to answer her, also in a more serious tone

I am unconcerned with hell being enjoyable or not, now or later, because thats not the point. "Daydreaming" actually questions God's will. For why did he create man? Why did he create sinners, or in other words, souls that are destined to perish eternally? What is hell? To the best of my knowledge, He created man out of love, to give his love and make it known. That should be true in a sense. Then comes the question of sinners. Sinners exist because of Adam and Eve's folly in the garden of eden, by accepting the fruit that enabled them to differentiate between good and evil. That was the first sin. And also because of Satan's presence and hold over this physical world. All this can be found in the Bible.

So what about sinners, why do i bring them up? Because Sin separates man from God, and then God created Jesus Christs his son to bring salvation and offer a road to him, if only we believed and have faith in his existence. In other words, sinners or non-believers are sent to hell. Now that is a tad bit extreme, because considering the fact that you have a limited life span therefore have limited sin (you cant sin eternally in like 80 years), how can anyone deserve to have eternal punishment. This can be justified by saying God is perfect and therefore imperfect things cannot stay with him, but it still does not do justice entirely to sinners, since they cannot possibly sin infinitely. Then comes the non-believers. My church or every church in the whole world teach that even if a person with super-morals and live life like monks will not achieve salvation because of them not believing in God. This is unfair in a sense too, since there are lesser believers than non-believers, they tend to stick in their own camps. For example there would be much lesser christians than non-christians in countries like Iran, because of their environment. Your religion will in most cases take after your parents or relatives or close ones, in other words your environment, so people are going to hell just because they dont believe in Christ. Also, the amount of sin you commit is dependable on your environment and your genes too. Genetics and improved DNA understanding have uncovered links between genes and traits such as violence. So if you were an abused child in a troubled and stormy childhood, with genes that make you more violent and rash than normal, and you grow up to become a mass murderer, does that make you worthy of going to hell? Because some people have defined going against God as purposefully doing acts of sin and unholiness without remorse (eg murder, sex crimes, adultery). What if the reason for that was your genes and environment? Mass murderers would not be mass murderers if they had good environments like you and me. Even genes alone would not provoke such extreme lifestyles. At this point the only possible rebukes I can think of is that God's definition of justice is not definable by man, because we have limited understanding, so maybe in God's terms of justice the sins people commit and the disbelief in Christ will warrant them a permanent stay in hell. I have to say that in my opinion that is unfair.

So whats all those roundabout talk about? Its all down to God's will, about why he wanted to create man, sinners in man, the souls that will go to hell. The Bible says he is all-loving and all-seeing, knowing, forever living ---- omnipotent. Why does he create souls he already knows will perish in hell? Because of his omnipotence, he easily knows before even creating them, that they would encounter the unique environments in the physical world and eventually lead them into hell. Why does he allow this to happen, even though he knows what will happen and he loves us? At this point, Satan is not even a factor, so we cannot simply say that he allows sin to propagate on Earth. He can make the decision whether or not to make them. And why he created man in the first place?

Sometimes I really want the Bible to be more detailed and also contain all of the answers to the questions man have for God, though I know its purpose in the first place was to lead the first few christians, that is few thousand years ago in bible terms, into Christ, and not all of the things we thirst for knowing. Just imagine instead of "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ", it would be "at 10^-43 seconds the big bang explosion of very hot and dense matter expanded exponentially at an indescribable rate. Then quarks formed and after the universe cooled due to its even expansion quarks started forming neutrons protons and electrons, then the first element - hydrogen - formed, later on giving rise to heavy metals " ...so on.

And to charmaine, I do not know why she referred to hell as being dark. If it was a king's (one of them in the bible i forgot.) son's wedding banquet, where he threw some people out into the dark and closed the gates as the metaphor for hell being dark, I can equally say that the darkness could be a place in heaven where God places Christians that do not do the acts deemed right by God. Anyway we cannot deem hell as dark or any of the properties I have stated before, because of our limited knowledge of Christianity. We do not truly or fully understand God, and therefore we do not fully understand hell. Maybe darkness is a property of hell? But the bible also states fire as a metaphor for hell, so as our understanding of fire is a chemical reaction (combustion) producing heat and light, I naturally assumed hell to have some form of light. It would be sad though if no one could see each other there. That aside, I know I have said heaven as being boring. I also know that since heaven is perfect, no one would be bored. The reason for my contradicting statement is that since everyone would have a perfect environment that exudes happiness/joy/calm/vitality etcetc, then the perfectness of the environment would in itself be its own failing. Because a perfect environment would cease to be perfect due to the imperfect beings inside, that is the souls of man. Perhaps our form and intelligence and therefore behavior would change once we reach heaven/hell, but if we retain the same behavioral patterns, the perfectness of heaven would cease to be. Unless God makes us perfect, but he have never done so, because that would have taken away free will, which he gave to us, we will be "bored". The bored joke is only made because of the imperfectness of heaven in my eyes, IF the circumstances are what I have described.

That being said, given his omnipotence, he could also make people with nature that perfectly harmonises with his standard, so that everyone goes to heaven, AND at the same time still maintain free will, AND still remain happy in heaven. My logic is that since he gives us free will, and assuming that he wants us to continue having it, we will eventually be bored in heaven, given our retained behavior in our souls. Here you can say that he is omnipotent and can make our souls have free will, retain the same behaviour and still not be bored because of his omnipotence, then of course I wont have anything to say. But like I said, its just a joke...why take it so seriously!

We are imperfect due to how he created us, for the reason of free will, which can actually be circumvented if he tries. Imagine us being perfect. Still with free will. Well I guess he has his reasons

I truly believe in the Bible, and therefore God and Jesus Christ, and have accepted Him as my saviour, but surely a Christian is entitled to his own questions and pondering? :) I will never know the answers to these questions until I ask him myself...

Bowling!

Went bowling today morning with XT and Joshua. Largely satisfied with my scores today. My highest game was a 160+ and the other three were at least 128 above. Ended with a total score of 561 for 4 games, average score per game is 140.25, woohoo
Xiaotian had a wrist sprain ever since last week's session, so he didnt bowl very well...Joshua was his usual self, incorporating crazy-stupid blends of actions and taunts.

Like "Look Im definitely going to spare this shot", then proceeds to wipe his ball sagely and walk with flair to the line. Too bad his ball went into the drain directly after he released the ball.

After eating Meltz at kfc (ive at least eaten 7 times now) we went to City hall to look at guitars. Wasnt very eventful, but along the way on the MRT we saw a SUPERFAT woman. Seriously Ive never seen anyone so fat in my whole life. Her lower leg can be the size of my thigh. Worse still her face isnt kindly looking like the girl in 200 pounds beauty. It was sort of contorted with little points of black for eyes in her pudgy, semi-solid flesh of a face and her mouth was a thin line shaped into a grimace. Imagine our horror, at the sight of such a being who could sit on 1.8m tall people and crush them.


Anyway after looking at guitars we went home to do pending homework...sigh

Daydreaming

Have you ever woken up from bed on a weekend and lay there unmoving, not wanting to spoil your comfortable position? Or have you ever started gazing out of your window into the far distance on a golden late afternoon, bored with your homework? It is these times that I begin daydreaming. Thinking through, I daydream of pretty funny stuff when I was young, and hopelessly unrealistic ones in the present.

When I was a child, I thought about heaven and hell, whether I would perish in the fiery depths or go live in the fluffy white clouds with God after my death. I was terrified at the thought of going to hell. Then when I grew a little older I thought about it again (also recently). Everyone is going to live (in hell or heaven) eternally, that is forever or infinite time. Going to hell isnt that bad, I thought. Think, if you went there (which has eternal flame that burns you), wont you eventually get used to it? Seriously, because you wont ever "die" again, so you would just keep burning and burning. Wont people adapt to the temperatures and then start sitting around and playing poker or something. Or sinful stuff since hell is full of those people....hey, no AIDS in hell man.

Then heaven is another thing. Imagine you go to a place wonderfully perfect and joyful that there is not a single blemish of non-goodness. For ever.
I mean, it would be nice at the start, but FOREVER and ETERNAL is a very very long time indeed, so wouldn't anyone start getting bored along the way? And you cant go down to hell to join those people having fun there too. But saying that, the people in hell would also sooner or later become bored. We all have human nature in us = we get bored easily. Sian ah. First words you say when chores are given to you.

So what about God. He is omni-potent, the Alpha and Omega (beginning and the end), the eternal being..........
AINT HE A BORED OLD MAN???
He existed without a start, and is forever, such that the human mind has no capacity to comprehend. To us, everything is simply cause and effect. You jump down the building, you die. No sane person ever said I have always been jumping down buildings, with no starting and no end. Because it simply does not make sense.
Anyway back to God. He has existed far longer than anyone could ever imagine, so I imagine he is pretty bored up there. Ok he has his herald of angels, white kingdom, he could do anything he wanted....but for eternal life that is still boring. So I think he created man out of boredom. That is the only logical reason I could come up with. Standard answers in church say that our purpose in life is to spread God's word to others. Ok this is all very well, since God wants more people in heaven, but it still doesn't explain why he wanted to create us in the first place. I say he is bored. You see, one day he created the universe in the big bang and the many colourful things in it. But that isnt enough. He created sentient beings that he could watch and amuse himself with. He can witness from beginning to the end of man how they lived and constantly upgraded himself, and also be a small part in every person in the form of their conscience. Isn't this familiar? The Sims??
Then I also thought, since he has omni-potency (infinite power) he SHOULD be able to know what would happen in the world and what man would do even before he created it. So I guess it also defeats the purpose of creating us.

Sigh, what a boring life we would have and God has....wonder what he could do to amuse himself, but also knowing fully well that He would still be bored eventually. Eternity, such a lonely word.
Anyway we are doomed one way another, so just live life as extravagantly as possible!

Now all this is simply my daydreaming! It is in fact all rubbish. Dont take it seriously

z

As I am typing now, the rest of my family is sitting on the couch with their eyes glued to their tv watching crocodile hunter. Amidst all of the shrieks, whoops, suppressed screams followed by sighs of relief that the bad croc/poisonous spider/scorpion/any deadly creature you can name, did not eat up the person/sting/bite/kill him. Sooner or later there will be hysterical laughter and they will start writing memorials to Steve irwin. I am glad im in my sanctuary that protects me from the horrors of the wild, though technically they are just pixels on the tv screen.

Book Recommendation! : A man named dave by Dave pelzer
This book is super bewitching that it kept me totally glued to it for one whole day such that i finished it in one day. 400 pages. Its about a child who was abused by his mother, because the mother was emotionally unstable and was a victim of abuse herself. This is the third book of a series that depict his life (the author's); its all true. This is about his adult life, about his being unable to emotionally accept the woman he loved and totally trust her, eventually leading to divorce, and how he met another amazing woman whom he was totally blown over by, because of her virtues, attitude, understanding of his situation, and her constant encouragement.
This book is as touching as Chinese Cinderella! For those who like to read about people's lives and cry for them, well this is the perfect book! My sister's friend (my sister borrowed the book from her friend, then i borrowed from my sister) actually cried when reading the book, or so my sister claimed.

Of course if you dont like emotion-laden tear-jerkers, there is always Eoin Colfer and artemis fowl waiting for you :)