From Arguments to Truth

Arguments, i had always believed that it has the power to distinguish between right and wrong. An analogy is in a court of law. The proponents of the truth would be easier to win, simply because it is backed up with many evidences that points towards its victory. While the opposition of truth, they will left either with contradicting explanations, illogical explanations, or even inconsistent with accumulatively true evidences. Hence, with this power of argument, I tend to ask, why don't we do it with religion? Let's argue and the truth shall win! As in written in C.S Lewis Screwtape Letters, the devil hates argument! Since they know they will definitely collapse as all evidences points towards God.

This was my stand yesterday and my days before that. Yesterday, i had achieved a new understanding. From the prayer fellowship, from what i read and ponder, from my chit-chat with my friends, from a reflection of my experiences, i realised that arguments are quite useless in the presence of one fact : human biasness!

Because of human biasness, we tend to sustain our ego, be too prideful to lose in arguing. This might be the main motivation that drives us to argue, so to speak, rationally and objectively. Well, take a case of the dispute between creationists and evolutionists. What people know, is that there might be hidden agendas. For creationists, they have the so called 'propaganda of their religion', as evolutionists would see. While evolutionists are biased that they might be motivated by atheism. But guess what, in arguments between the two, there are still many other hidden motivations! Each and every pride contained in every human beings!

Because of this pride, one refuses to admit lose despite they are losing. They will argue and build up new arguments just to prove that they are not losing yet! Their stand might be weak, irrational, they cant explain everything, but they just dont want to lose! In the Bible, how do the Pharisees explain all the miracles of Jesus? They dont have a full explanation of the miracles, but they just dont want to lose and therefore they hated Jesus! One option was to cater towards ignorance, but ignorance is supposed to be agnostic and not sentimental! We can't judge!
To sum up, winning arguments doesnt necessarily settles that the arguing parties will return to the correct stand. In a court, the losing party will end up with mulky faces walking out of the courtroom. They still disagree with the verdict, though they know it is right, no matter how many 'neutral' evidences declares their lost.

"Love never works coercively. It only works persuasively."

This quote was by Norman L Geisler, Ph. D, and I obtained it from "The Case for Faith" p. 198. Here, I'd like to assess the validity of the above claim. Does love really works only persuasively? Well of course, from what we learn from God, we knew that it should give freedom. This view is consistent with the acknowledgement of the intrinsic values of human beings, as was mentioned by J.P. Moreland, Ph. D in p.253. Judging human beings using instrumental values is dehumanizing. It is similar to denying the 'free will' that has been given as the highest blessing. But now arises a question. If love just works persuasively, how would you explain a situation where a mother was trying to force her child on drinking, say, a medicine? Surely this violates the above principle isn't it? If we want to stick to it, then the furthest we could say is that the mother should just persuade her child, and not forcing him to drink. By applying a force, perhaps through beating, a common scenarion, it simply means a 'dehumanizing' act, stripping the child of his freewill that has been granted upon him. But a contrary to that situation, for a mother that would let her child suffer would also be crazy. Then how would we resolve this issue?

What I think is that, well, the above quote is true, but incomplete. My guess is that the quote works for people who has reached a certain level of maturity and therefore is able to discern for themselves. A child, therefore, I must say, doesn't have a 'complete' freewill like adults do. And towards them, a dehumanizing act is permissible. But of course, this also means that by treating them based on an instrumental value, the right and wrong question must also be shifted towards the ends of the action; that is, we must judge whether the action has a morally good end or a bad one. Thus, moral standards are not neglected.

Hence, to sum up, if we love or care about something, we should not be coercive but instead, be persuasive. However, this is only valid if consequent party has reached what I termed 'maturity'. Well..actually this can be a general principle that can be applied in many aspects.

In politics for example, freedom of choice, or in other words is democracy, is good. It simply gives back a meaning towards human dignity, which is in accordance with God's will. But the 'maturity' assumption tells us that likewise, democracy is good only when the group of people has reached a mature understanding towards politics. Otherwise, we should adopt the spoonfeeding approach, like that of a mother forcing a child to swallow a medicine. I'm not discrediting democracy. It is good, respectful, but perhaps it works best for a mature society in which freedom of choice can be really exercised without unfair intervention of outer parties.

The next issue that I would tackle is whether a constant act of persuasion would be equal to a coercion. A common misconception is that constant, intense persuasion would mean a 'psychological coercion'. This is a hard issue. But I'll try to explain this by use of an analogy. Well, my point is that it is quite absurd to label an intense persuasion as a coercion. To understand, let's compare it with marketing. One marketing strategy was to make use of psychology. Well, perhaps constant persuasion might be annoying, just like advertisements do, but labeling it as coercion is like sueing McDonald's for 'psychologically affecting' us that we walk into its store and buying their meals.

Comics / Animes

The most recent 2 comics/animes that immediately became my favourite was One Piece and Naruto. I dunno why, perhaps I like those comics whose main character are strong. Strong in the sense that they believe in themselves, they show determination and have the right principles that act as a resource to their strength. They may be weak, but they are not giving up. In One Piece and Naruto, the 2 main characters, Monkey D Luffy in One Piece and Uzumaki Naruto in Naruto, show these characteristics. Perhaps it's also true for KungFu Boy and Samurai X, my old favourites.


Now, a question that arose is, whether this 'not willing to give up' spirit is relevant for reality? Is a 'sheer determination' in our strengths a good thing? Is it a 'right thing' for us to adopt certain unchanging principles and fight for it till the end? Well, I would think the answer is yes and no.
Stiffness is good. This essence of 'unchanging' is awesome. It represents faithfulness, either to a choice we made or a principle we adopted. But it could be a 2-sided coin. It can give you either a very good impact, or a very bad influence. An unchanging principle grounded on wrong concepts are extremely dangerous, while that which is based on the right principles is the worthiest thing you could ever ask for. Take Zoro in One Piece for example. I think he too, was a man that has his own principles. But too bad, the he has a wrong base for his principle. He was too arrogant when he quoted that "I never believed in Gods, I require none of them." Another example would be like Haku, Gaara, and Kimimaru in Naruto. I think what Gaara said when he appeared for the 2nd time, after he had 'realised' his mistakes makes a lot of sense.


This is a conversation between Gaara and Rock Lee after Gaara defeated Kimimaru :

Gaara : You're the same. If the person you admire is insulted, you became angry. If that person is important to you... To fight for that important person.. (referring to Orochimaru, the most evil). He, (referring to Kimimaru), was the same as Uzumaki Naruto (last time Naruto was fighting Gaara to protect his friend, Sasuke and Sakura). But the person who is important to you isn't always good.

Rock Lee : Really? You don't have to take someone bad as your important person.

Gaara : No... Even if you knew they were evil.. People can't defeat loneliness.


Yep, finally, I also think that comics may give a good or bad influence towards us, depending on how we see them. One pitfall would be, we may be relying on ourselves too often, because of the influence of this believe-in-ourselves spirit advertised heavily in comics nowadays (maybe i can't generalise it coz its just based on the few comics i've read). So perhaps we should learn to notice them and pick just the right thing. Never giving up spirit was great. Faithfulness towards a (correct) principle was awesome. But unlike the characters in those comics, we should rely ourselves on God's power. To add on, perhaps believe-in-ourselves spirit in reality may sound a bit too naive, people may think. Afterall, I also didn't quite agree with the familiar phrase 'if there's a will there's a way'. I think that will is not the only factor. There are others such as ability, or perhaps, opportunity? No one who has a sheer will can become a tennis champion when they wanted to start playing tennis just when they're 20 years old. (Well of course, we couldn't make something that's undergoing a process to be an absolute, but I can say that the probability is nearly zero). But still, having sheer will is great in the sense to maximise your maximum potential and it's been proven to boost your capacity.


To sum up, I believe that comics can give either a very good or very bad impact. Principles are good, it might lead us either to a good person (if we have correct ones) or a very evil person. But still, I admire those who have principles (regardless of whether they're right or wrong) more than those who don't.

Uncertainties

I'm sure many of you have heard or read about conan the detective, and it was also one of my favourite comics many years ago. One thing, I was always amazed by the accuracy of his hypotheses! (Of course it's a comic, you might argue) But one thing that keeps bothering me is that how does conan knows when he's ready to act? or how does he know that he knows the murderer?

Let's consider an example. Often, most of us had experienced being mistaken before. What we really believe to be correct, for example, might turn up to be wrong. Then we suddenly get enlightened and say "Ah, yeah right, I was so stupid!". We suddenly realised that we have been mistaken. Now the question is, if you are ready to make a decision, how do you know that your decision is the correct one? Aren't you assuming something? That you won't be mistaken? Or that you won't change your understanding in the future? And returning to the conan the detective case, isnt conan assuming that perhaps he was being tricked? That there's no one smarter than him able to trick him into guessing the innocent to be the murderer? This is a hard question to answer.

Practically, if we think this way, then nothing is certain! You can always make the situation to be like 'regressum ad infinitum', as in the case of Descartes doubting everything, when you can always ask "Why didn't you doubt your own doubt?". The situation is similar here. There's simply no conclusion that can be drawn! Well, this is a very important question to address I guess, since this also compromises our faiths as religious people. How do we know that we won't change our perspectives in the future? Does anyone have any idea?

Well, the first part of the question actually have been answered by my senior. Thanks to Lily by enlightening me! =D So, to answer the question : when does we know how to make a decision? The logical answer turns out to be : when you must act or else it's too late. I think this is a reasonable solution. Think about when you're in an examination hall, and you can't do many of the questions. Well, you wont think to get a perfect solution for one question right? You'll just attempt as many questions as you can! Perhaps you then think : This is an easy solution! But truly, many of us doesn't realise it when it comes to different problems in life! And this is what i'm trying to say, that this solution seems to be the best, and it is the result of us being finite, limited human beings! (In the exam halls, it's the time that makes us 'finte')

Yeah, now almost all questions have been practically solved. For people like me, that can be considered quite an idealists, we always have been very careful, or often too careful that we always misses opportunities! To get the absolute is rather far-fetched! And sometimes as an idealist I often asked myself "If everyday I'm improving by a little, then at which point I shall say 'this is it, I can be considered good enough now' ". And I think this has been solved, well, with what a rather empirical solution. And this is supported well with historical examples! Consider the collapse of skepticism! It's argued that it has no practical results, and hence is deemed useless. Indeed, life is too pragmatic... or else...we're forced to be pragmatic...

A Test For Genuity

Over these past few weeks, I was thinking about the issue of genuity. We know that there are 2 kinds of people, the 'genuine' and the 'fake'. The problem is, how do we distinguish the two?
What standards are we going to use to test genuity? How are we going to find out the truth?
I find this topic a very crucial one to address! First, this is my reaction to the fact that indeed there are 'fake' people that loiters around us. Not only they disadvantaged their 'victims', but they also act as a 'parasite' in the society that spreads uncertainty, that people can't believe in one another, even something that's genuine! Thus, it has been my objective to unmask them, and I hope that I can increase the awareness of the public. So let's get back to the issue. How do we know that something is genuine?

No wonder, the usual attempt was to look at 'indicators'. This might be the form of actions, or behaviors, or anything that supports our hypothesis. For example, if someone estimated that the other person is 'genuinely' hardworking, he might look at indicators simply through observations! If he was found to be hardworking after a few observations, then he is 'genuinely' hardworking! Of course there's a catch! He might pretend to be hardworking! So now a new variable must be introduced : time! I believe that those who were fake will be 'exhausted' to pretend all the time. So..do we have a complete solution now? Sadly we don't!

Here's my point : we can't believe fully a 100% of something just based on observations, evidences, even though we have a 'big random sample' and over a long period of time! Y do i say so? Statistics are always statistics, they never prove anything. Hence, even though you always take abundant samples over a long period of time, you always assume something! Assume that the other person is "not strong enough" to remain as a fake! What I mean is, look at David Blaine! What do u think is the motivation behind his great perseverance?
I'm not saying that he has a 'wrong' motivation, but yeah, didn't it depict what great power humans have? And what could have driven him to do such things? Money? Fame? No offense, but i dunno.. but if those things can drive a man to do such things, to bear until that level of commitment, then how do we know whether there are people, motivated by the same things mentioned above, will not be a fake and persevere to obtain money? fame? or anything?

On the other hand, neither can we distinguish a genuine person! We're always subjective! Look at history! The most genuine person was not believed by many. Look at Jesus Christ! Isn't it a tragedy? Haven't we learnt anything yet??

So what's the conclusion of all? A deadlock situation?

Fortunately, there's one and only solution for this. In the Bible, notice how Jesus had repeatedly differentiates the genuine from the fake. He scolds the pharisees who are deemed as genuine by many people, as a fake! So the answer lies in God's wisdom. What is impossible for men is possible for God... Well, I think this is the only solution, and no other humanly attempts or thoughts would resolve the issue of genuity. We have to ask the answer from Him alone.

The Beauty of Irony

Perhaps i had gotten this idea a long time ago, now that i just try to formulate it in words.
Here's my simple and straightforward point : Irony conveys a sense of beauty. For me, perhaps it is the greatest, highest, and most beautiful form of artwork i had ever known so far, which seems most intriguing to me. We can find some form of irony in many artworks, starting from Romeo and Juliet, the Korean tv drama series, Comics, or even video games (mainly RPGs)!This is just a pattern that i noticed that applies to almost all 'masterpieces', is that 'irony' is indeed the recipee for the 'beauties' contained in these sources.

Let's take a closer look at some korean tv drama series. In Winter Sonata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_Sonata) for example, it's an irony that Jun Sang involves in a serious accident! Imagine a journey without a hurdle, well, no one would actually watched the tv series i guess. Next is the series Autumn in My Heart(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Fairy_Tale). It contains an irony in the sense that Jun-seo indeed fell in love with his long separated younger sister! (You might argue that it is a drama movie so there's supposed to be a twist and turns in the plot. Exactly, and those dramatic twists and turns are things that make up the irony!)

Now, i'd like to discuss about comics. Not trying to promote anything, it's just that i think the most beautiful comic i've read so far is One Piece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_piece). Perhaps it may look childish, but it contains a lot of ironies! The comic even started with an irony; The king of pirates Gold D Roger was about to be beheaded, and the irony is, he was smiling, despite him knowing full well that he was about to die! There are so many examples of ironies you can find in the comic. The frequent flashbacks in the comic often serve to begin the ironic situations. Monbren Norland for example, is depicted as a normal and righteous person, but was beheaded and is called 'a liar', just because he reported to the king that he found an island full of gold. When he accompanied the king to search for the island however, it was no longer there. In fact, the island had 'floated' in the sky. As a result, he was punished, called 'a liar' and beheaded in front of many people including his crews who was with him when he went to the island. This then became a legend, a legend of the east blue, called 'Monbren the liar'.

Thirdly, i'd like to assess the RPG's. Which gamers haven't heard of final fantasy? The most popular RPG (well i can say the best RPG) in the world. Now the reason that we find final fantasy a good game, is particularly because of their storylines. Twist and turns are there, together with ironies! In FF7, midgar, the very 1st city we visited in the game is destroyed later in the game, leaving memories behind. In FF8, it's the Balamb Garden. The same goes for FF9. In FFX, it's an irony that the main character in the game, Tidus, in the ending he vanishes as the 'time' was over. It was said by the fayth that he was just a dream, an illusion. After spending so many hours playing the game, gamers would have been attached to the characters! Well, yeah, in the end you lose everything. It's the taste of irony! But why do we still play the game? Knowing that it has twist in the ending? That it may not end like what we expected? Indeed, it was because the tragedy that makes the game beautiful! Well, yeah, and perhaps there's another reason on why I like most RPGs. Once you finished the game, you will realise that it's over. And you won't get used to not playing it for sometime. That's the effect of playing RPGs. We often think it as a 'dream', living in the ideal, virtual world! Once we 'woke up', it feels as if we had been transported back to the 'not so ideal' world. It's has the same taste as irony! It's ironic that once we came back to the real world, everything finally comes to an end. And what do we get lastly? Nothing! The pleasure won't last after you finished the game.

So far, I've discussed many things about irony. Well, here's an ultimate secret : This recipee for creating a good film, a good comic, a good storyline, a good game, etc, is indeed derived from 1 historical fact! A fact that God, the Creator, had sent his Only Son to save us! And yet, the ironic thing is that we, as creations, as sinful beings, tortured and crucified Him! This is the ultimate irony! God had started this great 'piece of artwork'. Besides saving human beings, He had shown the greatest piece of art for us to witness! And subconsciously, beautiful films, comics, stories, RPGs, all derived the very essence similar to this historical event. Irony!

For your information, more ironies are to be found if we look across the history. Einstein for example, died before he finished his last works, and thus the final equation remain unknown to us. And yeah, of course, many great people died at a very young age. Pretty ironic isn't it? I'm just wondering if this is the continuation of the works done by the 'Hand of God'...a continuation of the 'great masterpiece of art'?

More ironies I can think of :
-It's an irony that those who are willing doesn't have enough opportunity, while those who have the opportunity are not very willing and don't use it to the full potential.
-It's an irony that we search for the best, but the best searches for the worst. (Jesus Christ searches for the sinners)
-It's an irony that the more wealthy you become, the more you feel you need more! The more you feel you are insecure and therefore hard to live peacefully!
-It's an irony that wise people are those who say 'i understand nothing', while the fool often boasts for themselves, but they are the ones who get the opportunity for that 'boasting' since most people look from the 'outside'.
-It's an irony that the people of Israel nowadays, mostly don't believe in Jesus Christ, though they are the so-called "chosen" by God.
-It's an irony that 'straight' people faces trouble, while those unrepentant people lived happily (confirmed in the Bible)
-It's an irony that the more advanced technology is, it is used for evil purposes.-It's an irony that 'what has a beginning has an end'.
-Valentine's day irony : (http://seed1.wevision.com/tt2/board/ttboard.cgi?act=read&db=donghaeng_board2&page=3&idx=8)

Yeah..can't u see this great beautiful piece of artwork? I think it's consistent with one another. The world is created by God. And perhaps it's His style of creating things to be? Well, who knows?But it certainly makes it all look beautiful on the whole =)

Destiny, Freewill and Prophecies (Revisited)

Lately i've been reassessing my views about destinies, human freewills and the validity of prophecies which might be not so clear then for me. And here's what I got after I rethinked it through, trying to piece them up such that it's compatible with the Bible and other sources.

Let's take a look at the example from the Bible! Jeremiah 31:15 predicts the killings of male infants during the time Jesus was born. Isaiah 7:14 predicts that Virgin Mary will give birth to Jesus, and named him Immanuel. Isaiah 50:6 and Isaiah 53:3-7 predicts Jesus' sufferings, Job 19:25 and Psalm 16:9-10 predicts His resurrection. Well, what's the point of having all these?

I often asked myself, why would Herod make such a decree to kill infants? Why would Virgin Mary named the child Immanuel? Why would people make Jesus suffer? Why would they crucify Him? One might just say : Well, it's the prophecy, it's destiny! Exactly! But now i'm trying to assess what is this that we called 'destiny'? And how does it actually work? By what means?

In my opinion, for destiny to work, it makes use of human ignorance about the prophecies. It's due to Herod's ignorance that he issued a command to exterminate all male infants, which is according to the prophecy. Think about it! If he knows about the prophecy, then he would know that the prophecy is true because in it he issued a command to kill the infants, and thus he must also knew that the child Jesus would escape since there was the continuation of the prophecy that says about Jesus sufferings, he would be ressurected, etc. One might argue that it's impossible that Herod knew about this, exactly, my point is, prophecy works this way, due to our ignorance, we wouldn't do something against it, or intentionally opposing it!

I've stated an example on the other article. Suppose there was a prophet that tells us that we would die on a certain time, say, 50 years later. But practically, we can commit suicide to prove it wrong isn't it? "Dying isn't that easy" is a stupid argument if we look at terrorists who easily blast themselves. Here, we can try to escape the 'prophecy'. I believe no prophecy is to be told.

Next, destiny also bounds our freewill by using the freewill of others. Humans have freewill, but the freewills of other humans are beyond a person's power to control! Hence, destiny calculates that we don't have enough power to fight it! What do I mean by this? When Jesus was crucified for example, I believe that his apostles wanted to fight but they were overpowered. It's make more sense if we take the example about the signs of the ends of age. In Matthew 24:5-7 it was stated that at the end of age, many will come in Jesus name claiming to be Him, that is to be God, and many will be deceived. We will hear rumours of war, but see to it that we are not alarmed. Nation will then rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. Here, we see that we certainly do not have any power to oppose the prophecy! There may be ignorant people that not know about the prophecy, and they act acording to it, they fulfill it! While we who know about the prophecy, are not in the situation to control the situation. There are many opposing groups who is 'made' to fulfill the prophecy. And who are we that we can 'prevent' earthquakes? Who are we to prevent famines? or even rumours of wars? or the establishment of religious groups that, according to the prophecy, will have their leader claiming himself 'God'?

Destiny therefore, is imminent! It also predicts all the rules and regulations, countries policies and acts, such that it will point towards what was destined! In fact, there would be no meteor falls that exterminate living things before destiny is fulfilled, nor a terrorist group launching a nuclear weapon that will exterminate all beings on earth! This is logical, since if there were such a group, surely many nations will rise against them! And this is nothing but working towards the fulfillment of the prophecy.

And those who are reading this, no matter what your status or positions are..i believe, are those who are 'allowed' to know the secrets behind the prophecy and therefore do not have the power to oppose it.