Malaysia, Truly Hypocritical

Any doubts that Malaysia was not a secular state have been laid to rest today by a judgement by the Malaysian Federal Court that a muslim cannot convert to another religion.
The panel voted 2-1 against the matter of her conversion, and the dissenting judge was the only non-muslim on the panel.
This decision not only affects the woman in question, but also many others whose cases are pending in lower courts. Some of these people originally converted to Islam and wanted to convert back.
Seems like, in Malaysia at least, Islam is like Hotel California: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Further, the decision directly goes against the freedom of religion enshrined in the federal constitution of Malaysia.

So remember folks, if you live in Malaysia, or any other country where there are similar situations, think, think and think again before committing to any one religion. Even if the patron deity of the religion isn't jealous, the priests and imams certainly are :P

Given this, and the many other cases where the rights of non-muslims are ignored in favour of the rights of muslims in Malaysia... well, I don't really have to complete the sentence.

But DAMN!

Can you spell I.R.O.N.Y ?

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5944929?source%3Dpoll.3AC27EC5B8BA9A6FF6D40C6A78375503.html

Synopsis: Lightning damages a statue of Jesus. Congregation gets worried. Nun says that it is just a freak accident of nature.

I guess all things that don't go your way are freak accidents while the things that do go your way are the acts of God. Hypocrisy FTW!

Quote from South Park: If irony were made out of strawberries we'd all be having smoothies right now ;)

+1 for homosexual rights!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070521/od_afp/britainanimalsgay_070521160344;_ylt=ArAYz5gWeX2acXt.F9P79c_MWM0F

Synopsis: A pair of gay flamingos are raising a chick at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge near Bristol.

There goes the argument that homosexuality is unnatural :P

(Blind) Faith

John 20:29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed"

That was the passage that we pondered today in church, and I think that this passage is one of the main points of contention between people of faith and people of science. As usual, there was a 3 point sermon, and I would like to use this sermon to illustrate certain aspects of Christianity in comparison to rationality.

The first point the preacher made was that questions are common among Christians. He said that there was some guy who went to Bible College because he had lots of questions, and he wanted them answered. After he graduated, he had even more questions, but apparently continued to "walk with the Lord". He used this to illustrate the point that everybody has questions and that having questions is normal.

He then went on to say that even though there are questions, they should not affect your fundamental belief in the christian God, and that belief in the christian God despite the questions you have is a good thing to do.

Finally, he went on to use Pascal's Wager as a justification for people to continue being christians even if they are having serious doubts, and says that eventually things will work out.

Since I am writing this post you will already know that I have problems with his statements.

Firstly, about his assertion that many senior Christians have questions as well. I hope that you all notice that even if this is true, these senior Christians certainly waste no time publicising their doubts. In fact, most public statements of Churches do not waffle and leave no room for doubt. They are proclamations ex cathedra, and no one is supposed to argue with them. I wonder if questions are so common and natural, why does the Church, and all religious groups, go out of their way to suppress any questions that are asked publicly? They hide behind the shield of religious tolerance, and say that any questioning of their beliefs is intolerance. If Christians truly embrace questioning as a way to get to the truth, they should, for example, answer questions such as: Why is there no evidence at all for the exodus and other major miracles of the Bible? Why are certain pieces of literature, contemporary to the books of the Bible and providing alternative views, excluded from the Bible and ignored (except when they support what is written in the Bible)?

Next, about the declaration that we should continue to believe even when we have questions, and its justification using Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager has been shown to be a circular argument, and thus can not justify anything. I was surprised that the preacher actually used it. If a person cannot find a better reason to believe than Pascal's Wager, go read up on the logical errors of the Wager, stop believing and start questioning!

Finally, and the greatest problem I see with the sermon, is the bold statement that those who believe without seeing (i.e. without evidence) are truly blessed, as stated in the verse above. Faith: To believe without reason. The big problem with this can be summarised in this quote by Voltaire: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. The history of religious is littered with illustrations of that statement. This, the idea that we should believe in things that have no proof, is only one step away from the idea that we should believe in things despite proof to the contrary, which is something that Christianity is edging towards, what with the recent archaeological findings that there was no mass migration of the Jews out of egypt, which invalidates one of the founding stories of the Bible.

Remember: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. If there is a God, I would think that he would respect the intellectual honesty of questioning him in order to discern the truth, instead of the blind faith in the sayings and interpretations of a flawed book by flawed men.

Now, to dispel 2 major misconceptions of science and reason:
1) Scientists have 'faith' in their work the same way that Christians have faith in God.
As I said above, the Christian faith in God is without evidence, or even in the face of contrary evidence. Scientists have 'faith' in their work because they produce results. They work! The day you see electrons stop flowing through a wire or you find human bones with dinosaur bones is the day where you will see scientists scrambling to find an alternative theory that works. On the contrary, the Church espouses values and beliefs whether they work or not.

2) The idea that there is no God is a faith similar to the idea that there is a God.
Not at all. People (Atheists) say that there is no evidence for a God. The burden of proof is on those who say that there is something rather than nothing. The reason this misconception comes about can be illustrated by the following:

a) I say that I believe there is a teacup in orbit around mars, so I have to provide evidence for the teacup.
b) I say that I believe there is no teacup in orbit around mars, then I also have to provide evidence for the teacup.
c) I say that there is no evidence for a teacup in orbit around mars, thus there is no reason to believe in the teacup.
d) I say that there is no evidence for a teacup in orbit around mars, thus I cannot say whether there is a teacup or not.

All people of religion belong to group a. Many people think that atheists belong to group b. In reality, atheists belong to group c. And of course, agnostics belong to group d. I hope this helps clarify what people think about atheists, and the difference between atheists and agnostics.

Pro-Beijing lawmaker denies Tiananmen Square 'massacre'

What an interesting coincidence! After talking about rising Chinese(PRC) nationalism yesterday, today the article mentioned in the title appears on The Straits Times! The good news is, the denial was immediately met with cries of outrage from the media and other lawmakers. So at least not everybody has lost their mind or is being controlled by the Communist Party of China.

The bad news is, I think that this is just a start. I am pretty sure that the lawmakers comments were designed to test the waters to see what the PRC government can get away with. We already know that the PRC government doesn't acknowledge the millions of deaths during the Cultural Revolution caused by the policies of Mao Zedong (more people, I might mention, than the Japanese killed in their invasion of the PRC). On a more humorous note, the PRC didn't participate in the 1960 Paralympic games because " there were no disabled people in China".

At the same time, the PRC Navy has just fielded a missile designed to take out American carriers. This, after their anti-satellite missile tests. The PRC is also aggressively pursuing relationships with african nations in order to secure the Indian Ocean. Which, I might mention, is not looked upon kindly by the Indians themselves.

You can draw your own conclusions from this facts.

Chinese nationalism... from a Taiwan pop group?!?!

Just got recommended this song by my girlfriend... watch it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnszYWDkyDc (somehow youtube doesnt recognise my blog)

Translations are here for all those (like me) who couldn't get the words clearly: http://www.chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2906&action=new

Basically song is gloating about how, after the long years of chinese people having trouble with learning english, now the rest of the world has to learn chinese! Which is true, but the tone of the song rubs me up the wrong way. You don't hear any songs extolling the virtue of the english languange over chinese, french or malay, do you?

Another interesting thing is how S.H.E, a Taiwanese female pop group, is singing it. True, the chinese language is called pu tong hua in china, but the title, zhong guo hua, translates literally as China's Language, where the China refers to the PRC rather than the ROC. Pro-unification feelings perhaps?

Back to the tone of the song rubbing me up the wrong way. As I said before, you don't often hear of songs in one language promoting that language and denigrating other languages. The whole thing smells to me like Chinese nationalism raising its ugly head. Only now, the propaganda is even more subtle and designed to reach out to chinese all over the world (esp. Taiwan perhaps?) through a popular pop group. I mean, the feeling I get from the song is: Mwaahahahahaha, now you have to learn MY language. Bow down to me!

Its for reasons like this, among other things such as the news almost every other month that some chinese have been caught stealing US military technology that really makes me wonder:

How truthful is the chinese government when they say that all they want is to grow peacefully?

Why are churches jumping onto the global aid bandwagon?

Just today I sat through a sermon where the pastor exhorted us to take the government to task about broken promises. The Western nations had apparently promised in 2000 to halve world poverty by 2015 and now that it is 2007. Although we are halfway there, the work is not halfway done. Just a few weeks ago there were articles commenting about this and various welfare groups talking about taking the government to task, and today the church I attend heavily promoted the idea that we should "blow the whistle" and spam the government with letters to "encourage" them to buck up. I drew two major messages in the sermon, which are: 1) Christianity strongly supports helping the weak and 2)The (secular) government has failed and a (christian) government would do much better. I feel that both positions are untenable.

First of all, the pastor quoted the following admonisment to the Jews just after they left egypt:(paraphrased) Just as you were foreigners in egypt and treated well you should treat the widowed and orphans with kindness etc. where the widowed and orphaned represented the weak and the suffering. This is all well and good, except for the fact that after that, the Jews, under the command of God, conquered quite a few cities. And thats not all. The widowed
(i.e. women whose husbands had just been killed in battle) were slaughtered and the orphans (female) were "taken as wives", which is a pretty good euphemism if I say so myself. How about the male orphans? Well, they were killed as well, being of no use to the Jewish men.

Of course, there are Christians who do charitable works and attribute their drive to their religion. The sermon ostentatiously glorifies these people. But, let us not forget that people from other religions, Muslims, Buddhists, do exactly the same thing. Why don't the religious groups get together and co-operate? Clearly there would be greater efficiencies in centralising certain operations. Here comes the catch: active evangelism goes on along with the charitable works, so there is an ulterior motive behind these works. Most of us are well acquainted with the image of a saintly Mother Theresa, and for Christians she acts as a mascot for the benign and beneficial image that Christians want to promote to the rest of the world. Even secular commentators have to acknowledge that Mother Theresa has brought lots of good to the poor in Calcutta, right? Well, maybe. But there is evidence that Mother Theresa isn't as saintly as she seems to be. In spite of the large amount of funds that are donated to her works, the condition of the homes that she runs for the poor has hardly improved. It seems like instead of using the money to help the poor, a large part of it goes towards the establishment of churches and the promotion of Catholicism per se. http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/490/theresa.htm

With that thought in mind, let us consider a reason that the preacher conveniently forgot to mention that could have led to the government failing to meet its goal for the alleviation of poverty. National Interest: In 2000, when the promise was made, the Asian Financial Crisis had more or less ended and people were feeling pretty optimistic about the future. Thus, promises to help other nations and the poor made alot of (political) sense. Afterall, if the people are already pretty happy with their lives, it helps to show that you are caring and all that. Then came September 11, and for UK, the June 6, which just about wrecked the sense of well-being of the people. With the subsequent wars, the ramping up of security procedures and the downturn in the economy, no government was going to be as generous. People who question where the money went can look to this for answers. I'm pretty sure there are many other reasons but thats not the point.

The big question is, why are Churches suddenly promoting this, as well as the environmental agenda? Well, I think that there are quite a few reasons, and they aren't the ones that Christians think they are. I'm pretty sure that when questioned, the leaders of the Churches would go on about how this was a problem that was swept under the rug etc. and how the Bible tells us to do good and all that. The problem with this explanation is that for a pretty long time, prominent Christians like Pat Robertson have been rubbishing these environmental claims, and questions can also be asked about why is it only at the halfway mark that the Church is taking the government to task about the poverty issue.

The answer, I think, comes from the fact that these issues have only come to the publics attention very recently. Afterall, a year ago there was no global concensus on global warming, and there was no well publicized push by activists on the poverty issue. Only recently, when the public are begining to speak out about it, is the Church suddenly jumping out in front, loudly leading the pack and trying to get recognition for doing so. Pat Robertson now heavily pushes the environmental message.

Why the rapid turnabout? Because it can help them attract converts. A green Church that advocates aid to the poor will certainly seem better to those who have fallen away from the Church because it was irrelevant to their lives. If the Church can find verses in the Bible that show that it was what God wanted all along, so much the better. At the same time, the Church can criticize the secular government for its failings and convince adherents that having more christianity in politics is a good thing.

Am I condemning the actions of the Church? Yes and no. I am pretty certain that the Church, being what it is, will be able to mobilize large numbers of adherents to support the two good causes. And this is a good thing. But those who have stars in their eyes about the issue should rub their eyes well and take a second look: The Church is doing this for its own benefit, as it always has.

The problem with focusing too much on religion...

One big problem I have with some people who are too devoutly Christian is how they ignore the people around them. My mother is certainly one of them, and just recently another event occured that reminded me of this.

One of my friends has been having trouble finding a place to stay next year. This was entirely by choice because my household offered her a place to stay and she rejected it. Regardless, my household still continued to help her find a place to stay with other people. Eventually, another friend in the household managed to hear about an available place and immediately contacted her and helped her arrange for a place to stay. Now, if I were that formerly homeless friend, I would be absolutely grateful and at least buy the guy a drink or two. Seems pretty reasonable, doesn't it? Rather than acknowledge the friend who helped her, she instead publicly gave thanks to God both at dinner time and on her blog, not mentioning the friend indeed at all! In fact, when the friend jokingly asked her for some reward, she very reluctantly conceeded at all.

Now, I'm sure the helpful friend would never want for any appreciation, but some giving of thanks to the PERSON would certainly be the right thing to do. Instead of choosing to do the right thing, this friend instead ignored the person who helped her and chose to promote her religion and the idea that God's help pops out of the sky and we should all be grateful for some Deus ex Machina.

Isn't that the damnest thing?

Interesting note for all those who blame the holocaust on an atheistic Hitler...

"We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out".

Source: Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, Oxford University Press, 1942

Why the second law of thermodynamics cannot be used as an argument for the existence of a supreme being

From Wikipedia:

Complex systems

It is occasionally claimed that the second law is incompatible with autonomous self-organisation, or even the coming into existence of complex systems. The entry self-organisation explains how this claim is a misconception.

In fact, as hot systems cool down in accordance with the second law, it is not unusual for them to undergo spontaneous symmetry breaking, i.e. for structure to spontaneously appear as the temperature drops below a critical threshold. Complex structures, such as Bénard cells, also spontaneously appear where there is a steady flow of energy from a high temperature input source to a low temperature external sink. It is conjectured that such systems tend to evolve into complex, structured, critically unstable "edge of chaos" arrangements, which very nearly maximise the rate of energy degradation (the rate of entropy production).