Archive for February, 2005
Resurrection
February 20th, 2005 Uncategorized
Nothing in nature dies. The manhandled dens now lives, growing small plantlets.
On evil and its existence
February 16th, 2005 Uncategorized
Brilliant Vernon Chan has this and this to say on his blog. (Please read the excellent commentry as well.)
All is good and happy with my world.
(Replicated here in case he decides to delete his blog away)
Theodicy
Tsunamis, the problem of evil, the problem for God
By Vernon Chan
There was a tsunami in the region almost two months ago. Yes, it’s a little late to start reporting it, but it isn’t too late to examine what – if any – lasting impact it has on people here.
The Straitened Times had its Senior Writer Dr Andy Ho, normally a medical doctor, write about the tsunami and the problem of evil in an editorial, which I believe misses the point and relevance of the issue.
What is the problem of evil? We take the tsunami, the lost lives, livelihoods and general devastation in the wake of its trail as an illustration of evil. If there exists a Divine Will (hereafter known as ‘God’), and assuming that God is perfectly good, all-knowing and all-powerful, why was such evil permitted to exist?
The real issue isn’t about a philosophical solution to the problem of evil and theodicy (the justification for the existence of God). It’s about how we as humans adjust to the unexpected, the ‘evil’, the unjust. And about what historical changes have taken place over the centuries, to change our responses to ‘evil’.
To understand all that, we must get to the root of Theodicy. Not the premisses behind the argument of evil (already stated in para. 2), but the operating social assumptions that the problem and the attributes of God both build on.
For a problem of evil and theodicy to exist, there are two corresponding novel social assumptions:
1. God (or his nature) is perfectly understandable to the human mind – hence we can abstract his attributes and intentions.
2. God is fully accountable for his action or inaction. If his mind, intent and nature are known to us, then he is called to account when reality (evil tsunamis) clashes with our conception of Him.
Theodicy II
Tsunamis, the problem of evil, the problem for God
By Vernon Chan
Theodicy was first coined in the 18th century by the philosopher Liebniz. While the field of philosophy loves to formulate problems as abstractly ahistorical, the problem of evil is a modern problem, and is only problematic for modern society.
Through their investigation of the problem of evil, Liebniz and his contemporaries shed more light on the sensibilities of their milleu. As far as the Divine Will is concerned, the disenchantment of the age and declining importance of religion manifest themselves in the logical formulation of God.
The Divine Will is boiled down into 3 attributes – and stripped of other qualities such as mercy, mystery, and awe. God, in theodicy, becomes the God of the philosophers, not the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham. The problem of evil accelerated the decline in the belief of a Divine Will for Liebniz’s generation.
How did they deal with it? In the 18th and 19th centuries the solution to the problem resided in the “Clockmaker God” defense – God institutes the laws of nature during the Creation, then steps back and lets the laws of nature operate – which lead to the unfortunate but necessary disasters. As God is omnibenevolent, he cannot break his own laws…
But what about miracles? Protestant theology at that time believed that the age of miracles had ended. For the early moderns, the statement of the problem and its solution indicate the fading of God from the world, the disenchantment and increasing rationality of society.
What about us? Why did the Straitened Times devote at least 3 editorials to the problem of evil and the tsunami?
Singapore, like the US, has experienced a recent trend of religious resurgence – mostly evangelical and fundamentalist. The problem of evil poses a threat to these Christian sects – the God in their weekly sessions is a deeply personal being, a Great Communicator, and the world is literally filled with God…
It’s not so much of believing that God speaks to us, as being convinced that a particular phrase in the Bible tells us directly and authoritatively that Harry Potter books are evil… Not so much of believing that God intercedes for us, but being convinced that he is actively working on OUR SIDE when we’re trying to fight our way to the train, earning our first million, protesting for a pay rise… That we almost tripped while coming down the staircase but didn’t, is a miracle, an intervention from the very Hand of God…
For people like this, a natural disaster wrecks havoc on their concept of God. “What, isn’t he supposed to make me rich when I pray for it? How could he send a tsunami instead?” laments a Singaporean follower of the prosperity gospel. (Yes, those very strange people have a strong presence here in Singapore, or used to before 2001’s recession)
The maleovence of disasters like this reflect badly on their God. The most popular response from these Christians appear to be the “for the greater good” defense: God must have allowed this to happen because either “free will” should be preserved through his inaction above all else, or “a better good will come out of this suffering”.
Of course, the only Christians who believe in that kind of defense are comfortably middle class, bourgeois, and distanced enough from the actual disaster to distance themselves even further from it. No luck if you were personally affected by the tsunami – chances are you won’t be spouting this particular defense.
2 Donald Justice’s Poems: Men at Thirty and Men at Forty
February 11th, 2005 books
Men at Thirty
Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles upon a cake
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash
Yet there was time to wish
Before the break light could die
If I had known what to wish
As once I must have known
Bending above the clean candlelit tablecloth
To blow them out with a breath
Men at Forty
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to
Humourous conversations
February 6th, 2005 Uncategorized
1. Overhead:
X – a male, having a latte and a slice of cake.
Y – a female, having an iced drink.
Conversation centers around a girl X fancies:
X: Is it a good thing if she thinks I’m dangerous?
Y: She’s hot for you man.
X: Girls like bad boys like me is it?
Y: You? (Manic laughter.) Sorry dude. You know how hell hath no fury and all that? She’s saying you are capable of making her depopulate cities, impale small children and puppies, topple sky scrapers and all that.
X: Woa lau. (Thinks.) I not dangerous looking meh? (Winces and grits teeth.)
Y: Yeah, you’ve got a real mean center parting man.
2. Participated
At a shopping center after lunch.
X – Male Colleague.
XY – Female colleague
Me – bored, hanging around.
X: I’m thinking of buying some decor for the office. Lanterns?
XY: Lanterns would be nice. Raise the red lanterns.
Me: Don’t they mean something else?
X: Quite appropriate what. We get screwed by customers everyday.
Singapore Forum on Politics 2005 : Towards An Open And Inclusive Society
February 3rd, 2005 Uncategorized
I found this from Adri.
Certainly open and inclusive societies seek to include every resident of the country. I’m hoping it might not turn out to be a grousing session for every minority imaginable. (For instance, disabled-alcoholic-ex-prisoner-obese-lesbian-Jenovah Witness-over-60-others.) While I have no previous experience with the NUS Pol Sci unit, I do trust Eleanor Wong and Asad Latif to offer an unskewed opinion that doesn’t turn out to be an all out bitch session. Like Adri, I AM BIG FAN of Eleanor Wong. (My idol!)
