So now the whole of Singapore knows that a pastor
had died after praying for a SARS patient and surely a lot of people will be
questioning Why? Why? Why? Instead of scratching our heads and become fearful
ourselves, let us take hold of this opportunity to point others to Christ and
share with them what TRUE LOVE is all about.
From this SARS saga, I believe the enemy is also trying to create division
among Christians: one group believes in walking by faith and another group
believes we ought to exercise wisdom. Instead of pointing fingers at one
another, let us be reminded of John 13:34-35 which says, "A new command I
give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another."
Do share this... a real powerful testimony to share
Let's
suppose everyone on the earth becomes a Christian, and each of them knows what
"TRUE LOVE" is, as patched up in this article.
Now one of them
gets infected with SARS, let's call it A. According to our assumption,
all the others will stand out to show their "TRUE LOVE" and
lay down their life for A.
In that case only
A will survive (this is under the assumption that once someone lay down his
life for you, you will survive, as hinted by the author. To be frank I
think it's nonsense. The patient this pastor prayed happened to survive,
that's it). All the others enjoy their time in paradise.
Now you see why
government quarantined SARS patients. Christians should blame the
government to prevent them from showing their so-called
"TRUE LOVE".
And I'd like
to ask why those most pious Spanish colonialist never thought twice when they
commit holocaust to native Americans? (dun be so history-illiterate to
argue they were no Christians)
It's very
interesting to observe how some Christians run all out to patch up their (maybe
with good will) humbug.
Last Saturday I
was watching Discovery at home when a Christian neighbor visited me and wasted
me over one hour trying to convert me. Finally I found patience and hint
won't get her out of my house, so I asked her what was "one day"
defined in the Bible when the God created the universe.
"The period
between dawn and dusk loh", she replied.
"OK I
appreciate your definition. When did the God created sun, moon and
stars?"
"It's on the
Thursday"
"Then isn't
it commonsense that dawn and dusk comes with sun? Before the God created
sun, how could he tell whether one day starts and ends?"
"......"
I smiled to her
viciously and waved her off gracefully.
The second day
she came again, claiming that she misinterpreted the Bible: the God created the
universe in seven days, we are still in the seventh day, the so-called Holiday.
"Oh I
see" I am so happy to watch her funny play. "So the God and the
human beings are under different calendars. We have two holidays a week
while he's always in holiday, isn't it?"
"You can
take it this way", she proudly answered.
"Then I have
another question. Is it true that after Eve ate the fruit the God swore
that he would add pain to her delivery?"
"It's more
or less in that way. That's what we call sin".
"So you
admit that the God is still working during holiday to increase pain to the
pregnant women? If you dun call it 'work', do you think it's the God's
free time hobby to add pain to others?"
"......"
"And a cow
also suffers when it delivers. What's the sin of a cow? It ate
another fruit from another snake?"
"......"
"The God
created light on the first day but sun on Thursday. Then what's that
light? Laser?"
"......"
This took place
on last Sunday. I believe this lovely Christian woman has spent last
week busy looking for new pretext. I am joyfully awaiting it.
And I have lots
more, which is enough to extend until the last weekend of my life.
Therefore I dun think I would be fortunate enough to join His disciplines...
(You
will find an anti-Bible book at my homepage with all these contradictions)
Seems this guy Wang Yi is always trying to irritate
certain group of ppl:-)
> -
How the patient survived, whether it's by chance or
> by
the prayer of the pastor, is impossible to verify
>
now. The only way to verify is to ask God in Heaven.
It's
Christians' preference to take groundless gossip (BTW, the origin of the word
"gossip" is god-sib, meaning god's folks) for granted, for God's
sake. I highly respect such preference, since I have been taught by my
communism government to respect all decent religions since I was born.
Nevertheless,
such behavior, which quite a lot Christians love to practice, as to peddle
their unverifiable points to free-thinkers, is far above my appreciation.
I dun care what opinion you hold, but why do you bother to convince me with it?
For the
same reason that I respect Christians, I respect homos (I am not comparing you
to gay). It's their choice and it's their life
style and it's nothing wrong. However, I noticed that gays never perturb
you so much by attempting to persuade you to adopt their sexual orientation.
With all
respect, I do prefer it if my neighbor is a lesbian.
> And
I'd like to ask why those most pious Spanish
>
colonialist never thought twice when they commit
>
holocaust to native Americans? (dun be so
>
history-illiterate to argue they were no Christians)
>
> -do
not confuse the failings of a group of people with
> the
failings of God and Christianity.
Merely a
group of people?
Let's
take Buddhism as an example.
Can you
imagine a Buddhism country, say, Thailand, to invade others and commit genocide
to their people? (Thailand and Burma had long time skirmishes on their border,
but there never had been any large-scale conflicts before the British took
Burma and provoked attacks)
Can you
imagine Buddhists wage a crusade war against Muslims? (Islamic
influence
also, as it did in Balkan and Spain, eroded into north India,
which is
a traditionally Buddhism region)
Can you
imagine different Buddhism denominations fighting so-called religious war
against each other, like what happened in Germany after Martin Ruther's
religious reform?
And can
you imagine Thai king would ever burn heretic, as what happened again and again
all over Europe?
One more
detailed instance: Tibet used to be very aggressive, having conquered China's
capital twice in mid Tang dynasty. Then Buddhism entered Tibet and it
almost instantly gave up military invasion, and later even integrated into
China. So was Mongolia.
This is
to show you that religions do differ greatly in its way influencing
politics. Just like it's your conviction that there is an omnipotent God,
it is mine that Christians as a group slays more ppl than any other in
history.
And
don't forget those who hunt, ferried and sold the Africans to America were all
Christians, the reason being that they had almost extinct the native Americans,
especially in Latin America by the Catholic Spanish, and they needed labor to
exploit the resources.
And in
your Southeast Asia, among the 10 countries in ASEAN, only one survived
from Christian colonists because of a compromise between two balanced
rivals. (BTW, this compromise later indirectly impaired China: since
British couldn't head east of Burma and access China from the south, it had to
encroach from the southwest, i.e., Tibet. This buried a fuse leading to
the war between India and China in 1962)
I beg
your notice that I am not saying Christians are all murderers, war freaks or
violent bigots. (Most of my friends in S'pore are Christians,
some
from S'pore Bible College. They are very kind. Even my Christian
neighbor,
I believe, also acts from good will. I sing in a pro-Christian
choir. And at this time I am listening to a CD of Berlioz's Messe
Solennelle) However, I do feel obliged to say it has a higher rate than
other religions, from a historical view.
When you
achieve your personal inner peace, never forget how many non-Christians
suffered from the brutality committed by a large number of Christians.
> -
There are lots of apparent contradictions in the
>
Bible. Note that these contradictions are impossible
> to
defend. Many Christians felt compelled to defend
>
these contradictions because they mistakenly thought
>
that the Bible in its present form is complete and
>
flawless. Yes, you are getting me right. I am saying
> the
Bible is not perfect. The Word of God is perfect
> but
not the Bible. Why? The Bible in its present form
> (be
it the NIV, KJV, NKJV, etc.) was translated by
>
biblical scholars who relied on ancient manuscripts.
>
Manuscripts which have been written as early as 5000
>
years ago. Some of these manuscripts would have faded
> and
have to be rewritten. Mistakes are bound to arise
> in
those 5000 years of writing, rewriting,
>
translation, etc.
I
appreciate it a lot that you are not among those who attempt to defend
the
infinite flaws in Bible. This is consistent with your education
background as well as admirable integrity.
Yet I'd
like to analyze why there are so many ppl who always try to do such
nonsense. Historically all religions are used to control the mass.
The cleric needs to patch up their ridiculous stories so as to make ppl, mostly
illiterate then, believe it. Christianity, as its counterparts all over
the world, shares the same feature. Just like other religions, it never
encourages the mass to topple their regime, unless the cleric wishes to seize
the power. However, sth special is that it encourages aggression.
Therefore, colonists hold Bible when they conquers, and use Bible afterwards to
cease any fight-back from the local.
Of all
religions, only Christianity has this thing called missionary. Besides
their religious responsibility, missionaries act much more important roles such
as collecting info of a new land before a war, instigating conflicts leading to
a war and anesthetizing the conquered after the war.
On March
13th, 1849 a Britain Navy warship Chiltern arrived outside Shanghai. It hid on
the sea and sent three missionaries to QingPu port of Shanghai. These gentlemen
distributed pamphlets of Christianity in the busy harbor, and of course made
some disorder in a then small county: sailors crowded around them asking for
the booklets. Then all in a sudden this guy called W. Lockhart used his
cane to hit ppl and slashed their cheeks, who fought back. Now they had
an excuse. The warship charged in and took Shanghai port, levy 50 silver
coins from each ship. To those who refused to pay, it shoot and blocked
them in the harbor. If you dun call this pirating, I dunno your
definition of pirates.
Another
example, in 1862 France set up the Church of Notre Dame des Victories in
TianJin. It has a orphanage, which is derived from Europe. It might
be an European tradition to desert baby, but definitely
not a
Chinese one. This orphanage couldn't get any orphans to adopt, so they
announced to buy kids. This induced local rascals (note that two
of them
later got arrested were both converted Christians) to abduct kids and sold to
them. However, the foolish management in the orphanage caused shocking
amount of death. These missionaries simply wrapped the corpses with
grass-carpet and buried them shallowly at night, which soon dug out by wild
dogs.
You guys
could imagine what a miserable view when local Chinese saw the bodies of kids
being rent by beasts in the morning fog......
Then on
June 21st, 1870, Tianjin citizens gathered and appealed to local government to
make investigation into this issue, doubting that the church bought kids and
kill them to make drug (this is not true of course). The governor called
in the French consul, whose name was Henri Victor Fontanier, to the city hall
to discuss this issue. During discussion this gentleman suddenly pulled
out his pistol, shoot the governor and killed his servant. The angered
citizens then hit this Frenchman to death, which led to France threatening to
start a war against China. The war was narrowly escaped cos Napolean III
was defeated by Prussia in 1871.
Two
years ago the Pope conferred hundreds of missionaries who lost their
most
precious lives in China as "Martyrs". I believe quite a lot of
them should actually be conferred by their own governments for their
successfully making pretexts for invasion. I could provide you with piles
of evidences if you'd like to challenge this claim, as near as in NUS
Library. Let's find out what kind of shabby stuff some
"Martyrs" were!!
> If
someone asks me why I am so sure there is God, I
>
challenge that person to explain to me how did life on
>
earth come about.
We dunno
yet how SARS came about doesn't mean God creates SARS to kill human
beings.
First of all, I have to say that I am impressed
with Wang Yi's knowledge and passion for his views. Passion is a rare commodity
nowadays. Many people I meet is sian sian sian.
While his email is very long, I believe these
are his basic points:
1. He does not believe in God, but neither is he
able to explain how life on earth came about if there is no
God.
2. He mentioned a long list of atrocities
committed by Western powers. These atrocities are committed by
people who call themselves Christians, but that
by itself does not mean that all Christians are
evil/greedy murderers. The fact that some
mainland Chinese are liars (witness the blatant lies by the
Chinese Health Minister and Beijing mayor) does
not mean all mainland Chinese are liars.
3. There will always be black sheep in any
society, in any religion. Christianity is no exception.
4. He claimed that the people whom the pastor
prayed for survived by chance, not by the grace of God. While I am unable to
back up my claim that the people survived because of the prayer, he too is
unable to
back up his claim that the people survived by
chance.
5. The existence of God may be unverifiable. But
so too is the non-existence of God. Why then are
Christians so keen on spreading the good news of
Lord Jesus Christ? Definitely not because there is a
tangible benefit in terms of money. It is
because we Christians do care and see it as our duty to obtain
salvation for our friends. It is definitely not
an easy job - and we often get rejected, sometimes
humiliated and frequently laughed at.
It is not easy to believe in God - I too was a non-believer
once. There will be people who won't
believe. Some things are not meant to be.
Cheez, this is an awful long email. A smart person like you
should put your time to better use, e.g.
contributing to society.
Strange. You are the one imposing your opinions
over the email your obession in criticising the behaviour
of some christians. Naturally, people has to
jump their defence to retort.
An example: If I criticse about China trying to
spread communism (akin to missionary) during the 50s-70s in the southeast asia
including Singapore (when Deng Xiao Ping came to visit SE Asia himself) and
China is also guilty of a part in Vietnam and Korea war, your rebuttal will be
swift and emotional.Just an
analogy...
I am confused with the issue contested. Why mix
the atrocities committed by people from the West with the religion? Isn't that
more due to POWER and greed of these people? Power corrupts regardless of
religion or no religion.
Indo-China war was started by china to capture
the military focal points of 3,225km long Himalayas border
(Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh) to prevent
further threats. It is subjective to say whether starting a
war is right or wrong. It just means loss of
innocent lives who is at the wrong time,place and era.
Some people says that Chinese army marched into
Tibet in July, 1949 and later forced the Tibetan delegation to sign the
Seventeen-Point Agreement.
Nothing meaningful will come out engaging this
endless debate. Perhaps, email isn't the right platform to
express your displeasure of the West.
Dear Yong Leong,
warm greetings from Singapore to Paris :)
with all respect, I think that your following comments
1 and 2 are quite irrelevant to the discussion. To me, Wang Yi has made it
quite clear in the email that what he disapproves is the over-zealous "evangelistic"
nature of some (not all) Christians.
Your concluding point seems to justify one
"wrong" with another "wrong". I don't know much
about Tibet.. but what will that prove even if it is valid? It will only show
that the Chinese goverment is not an angel. I don't see how that will be
relevant to our original thread of discussion..
I agree with Foong Soon's summary over Wang Yi's
long article. It seems that Wang Yi wants to point out that the Christian, as a
religion, has a history of using violence, which may show the possible trend of
this
religion in conducting atrocities. And this is contradicting
to the "TRUE LOVE" Christians are claiming. Actually Wangyi's this
statement has already deviated a bit from the original topic, that is: the trueness
of Bible stories.
As a religion, I think the role of today's
Christian is totally different from what they were at Middle
Age. Middle age's religion serves more for the interests
of governing classes. Today it serves to
salvage ordinary ppl's soul. It is nonsense to
use what the Christians were at Middle Age to understand
today's Christian, which is similar to
understand today's Germany by using the image of Germany at world
war II. So the fundamental thing is that the
right things can go wrong if they are at wrong hands.
Wow, GuoChun is
so profound! Still water runs deep ah:-)
With such bright
thoughts shining from above, how could I express any further nonsense?
Tuck Koon, let's
make a reconciliation. No bad feeling against any Christian here.
Just have told several history stories relevant to Christians during last
sessions.
I am not
anti-religion. Actually I am firmly pro-government, and how can a
pro-government person oppose religions? If all its citizens are
religious, a government won't have any trouble with internal security and
hence is able to exploit them "from ever
and ever":-) (Of course I mean decent religions instead
of those that encourage collective suicide)
Nevertheless,
issues like Tibet problem, Indo-China skirmish in 1962, communism
proliferation in Southeast Asia and China's involvement in Korea War as
well as in Vietnam War are very interesting topics in modern history and thus
worth further clarification, since our always elite Yong Leong has raised
them. However, I'm afraid I am highly engaged with other commitments this
week. Let's have a peaceful week then.
Enjoy the Labour Day. "Workers of all Countries, unite!"
Copyright
2000-2007 Wang Yi