Happiness

Something written as a letter more than a year ago:

If ignorance is bliss, why do I want to know anything?
If delusion makes me happy, why do I not delude myself?
If darkness is warm and cosy, why do I need any light?
If flattery makes me feel good, why do I want to hear the truth?

Life is to be enjoyed, to seek pleasures and happiness,
Is there anything wrong with that?
I may not know tomorrow, but I know today
And today I want to be happy not sad,
to please, be pleased and not deny myself pleasures

Why do I want to burden myself with unpleasant things?
with unnecessary sorrows, and unhappy ideas?
So be far away from me those who tell me bad news
and wants to rob me of my happiness, pleasures and comforts.

Although tomorrow, I may die,
I am already happy today and yesterday;
And tomorrow I can always continue to delude myself,
to walk away from unpleasant things and people,
or just close my eyes and dream my own dreams.

The Gospel: NOT Choose God, BUT Become Christ

A response to a contact on Flickr:

All on earth and in the heavens accomplishes God's will.

And this is so whether we know it, or not, and whether we choose to do His will, or not.

The sun, the stars and the moon proclaim God, and so do kittens, and puppies and sunflowers.

The Pharoah of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Cyrus of Persia, and the Romans, all fulfilled what God intended for Israel: to forge, destroy, restore it and finally to destroy it again.

And even when God's people have deliberately and blatantly opposed God's will, when it was revealed and made known to them in no uncertain terms, even so is God's will fulfilled.

Israel was not to have a king, but the Israelites asked God for a king, in defiance to what God said. And God listened to them and gave them Saul. And from Saul we have David. And from David, we have adultery and murder and Batheseba. And from Bathseba we have Solomon. And from Solomon we have Jesus.

We will not and cannot know what if Israel have not asked for a king. But we can be certain that we will have Jesus revealed in due time.

And so who and what are we?

We did not choose God, just as we, and nobody, chose us to be born. Even your parent didnt know its you they were making. We are who we are solely due to, and for, the will and purpose of God.

Whether we come to know of this God in our later lives, is again not of our choice. We have no say in the time, places, circumstances, and environment in which we will grow up or die.

But we know and can be assured that all accomplished God's will, even unknowingly and unwillingly, just as every ant that crawls on the earth and every wind that blows where we know not, do so too.

And we are born again, chosen to know him again solely due to, and for, the will and purpose of God.

So now that we know, what then?

Then we now know that we are children of God, and we call God our Father.

And we can reject God, but we cannot reject who we are.

And unless we become who we are, we will be like fish out of water, ontologically out-of-joint, and irrelevant and meaningless, to ourselves, and everyone else.

So we do what we do because of who we are.

We did not choose to do God's will because we seek to please him and to seek his favour and blessings. But rather we do God's will because we are part of God himself, as his children, being what we ought to be.

His love and care for us has nothing to do with what we do, or what we don't, and whether we choose to do his will, or not. He send showers and sun to shine on all the world.

But denying ourselves and turning away from our identity, who we truly are, and who we are destined to be, hurts God bad, just as a parent hurts bad, when they see the potential in their children go to waste and or remain undeveloped.

And so we ought not to preach choice. Rather we ought to preach being.

We are to be, to continually become, the children of God, taking after the Father, even as Christ takes after the Father.

The gospel is not that you can now choose God, but rather that you are all children of God, that you can call God, Father. The gospel is not Choose God, but Become Christ.

And your purpose in life is to be this child, even as Christ was and is, and to live life.

Living Word

A response to a blog:

alma said:

” ... THE GOOD SERMON IS OUR VERY OWN LIVES… “

Thanks for the affirmation, for every matter shall be established by two or three witnesses. For that was what I arrived at when I pondered on this thread and I shall now say the same thing too.

Living Word

Every member of the Body is a living Word, the Word becoming flesh in you, born again.

And this Word is read, whether or not it is spoken, whether or not intended, and at every moment and any place, for all times you are alive.

The church is not a place nor time, the church is to go to the world, and not the world to the church, the Word is as much for the ‘churched’ as for the many yet-to-be-called in the world.

And it is most glaring, and most false, and most deceitful, when what you actually say is at odds or contradicts what your lives truly speak.

We are all letters written on living, bloody and bleeding hearts.

And yes, bleeding hearts.

For any heart alive will be pierced by the pain, the sorrow, the agonies, the sufferings, and all the evil that is all around us, unless you are not of this world or evil itself.

But yet the heart lives, yet not it, but the Word.

And thus Christ is resurrected in our hearts for all to see.

And that is the best sermon: Christ in you, the Word, alive.

"I respect what you say, but ... "

A response to some blog:

I am sorry but I have to say I find this constant phrase gnawing, irritating, and annoying, namely, "I respect this and that, but ... "

Does "respect" mean anything in such a phrase?

If you want to say you disagree, why don't you just say you disagree. Why need to preface it with "I respect but ..."? Did I say anything less just saying, "I disagree"?

It is clear that we all have different opinions. So what do you mean when you say, you respect his opnion but you disagree?

Do you mean that you think his opinion wrong, baseless, flawed, but nonetheless it was becoming, proper and fitting of the opinion holder, and so deserving your "respect"?

Or are you saying that you disagreeing just to his opinions but not disagreeable to the person of the opinion holder? ie you respect the person or persons (even if you dont know who they are personally) but not his/their opinions.

Or are you saying his opinion is his opinion, it does not bother you, has no effect or impact on you, and you hold another, different, and even opposing one, and that it wont bother you to change his either. Then respect here means that you do not intend to interfere to try to change what his opinions are. He can keep his opinion but dont try to push it on me.

Or it is just the soothing stroke before you deliver the slap, and that respectful delusion is necessary because it comforts you that you have "respected" the person? And you can slap him the harder for it.

So what do you mean when you say you respect this and that, but ....

I am sorry. I respect what you guys are saying BUT I am perplexed, befuddled and entirely disrepectful! And please respect my opinions. Thank you.

Natural Disasters

A response to some blog:

I think I mentioned somewhere here after Katrina that more 'natural' disasters are to come.

No, no I am not a prophet, I am just being scientific.

Yes really, it is entirely predictable.

It is something called extrapolation from past events and given the 'nature' of things, such as earthquakes and hurricanes and unknown diseases. All scientists (and actuarists too) do that don't they?

So it is obvious that we can see.

It is also obvious that we do not know nor able to control everything, and that there is a 'power' out there seemingly beyond our domination, or at least for now.

But the human spirit is certainly strong and resolute and will strive ever harder to put these elements under control, as humans have subjected other natural elements in the past, eg nuclear energy, smallpox, gravity, to name a few. Mankind are now left with only a few small things, such as tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, global warming, bird flu, ebola, poverty, the damned terrorists and travel to the stars of course.

But then if you think - and not too hard - about it, when we say all these 'natural disasters are caused by 'Nature' are we not really resorting to the natural 'god-of-the-gaps' fallacy?

That is we really don't know what 'caused' it, and we are simply calling an unknown X with an undefined Y. It does not really changed anything: we know just as much, ie nothing.

And in 'natural' events we can substitute our ignorance with Nature or Tau Pek Kong or Allah or karma or Fate or Mother Earth or Satan. You can choose what you like, for whatever reasons.

But can you really choose what you like? Is it simply a matter of choice? ie what you choose is what is? Or that you have no choice: if you choose wrong you are damned? Well you may choose to think or say I am speaking rubbish too, and Ctrl-Alt-Del all I said. Sure, no prob.

But if you say 'Nature' is simply 'what is' then you are unwittingly acknowledging and calling 'it' the God of the bible, the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, the God of Moses.

For when Moses asked God His name, God said, "I AM I AM", ie God is the very essence of existence and being itself, everything that is, is God, including Nature, and hurricanes and earthquakes and bird flu and those damned terrorists too.

So that makes God a wicked and cruel and vegeneful God? Or on contrary a loving, patient and and forgiving God?

Think about it.

Oldest noodles unearthed in China

From a BBC website:

The remains of the world's oldest noodles have been unearthed in China.

The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood.

Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old.

No, I am not talking about noodles.

Continuing,

Professor Houyuan Lu said: "Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first.

"Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China," the researcher from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, explained to BBC News.

Well so we think.

Until someone else discover some older noodles somewhere else.

Really we never will know who invented noodles and when.

My point here is that we do not know what we do not know.

What we know is only what we know.

Truth is more than what we know, or even knowable to us.

What we know can only reveal falsehood but not fully uncover the truth.

Is the Ability to Choose, Freedom?

No.

To choose just means that there are choices, at least two.

Immediately it can be discerned that your 'freedom' is already curtailed by these choices, ie you cannot make a choice other than these choices.

And then even if you can choose, ie select one of the choices, it does not mean that you are choosing freely.

For you may be already predisposed or conditioned in one way or another, internally or externally, rational or otherwise, physically, physiologically or psychologically, to prefer one over another.

Even without the overt threat of physical harm or denial to access to resources such as food or money, you can be tempted by the promised outcomes, perceived or real, of your choices, valued in terms valuable to you, be it money, prestige, power, principles, or whatever that matters to you.

To choose freely means you can be completely indifferent to the choices and any arbitrary choice is just as good, or as bad, as the other. (Or is it?)

So the real source of freedom and of power is that which is able to influence and condition your decision about choices.

It could be a belief, for example a belief in rationality and the maximisation of benefits accrued to oneself.

If so then choosing means accessing knowledge and data to compute the outcomes of your choices and ranking these outcomes according to some value. And not to be free then means either not having the knowledge and data, or the inability to compute the outcome and make the evaluations correctly.

Or it could be a belief that the outcome must be 'good', not only to you but to all; or it is a belief that the outcome must be one that pleases God, or god or gods, or just someone or something else.

But then you are truly not free at all. For these beliefs hold you captive, in that you cannot abandon them, and you apply them consistently, consciously or not, and even that you cannot choose if you have none of them.

And then also no one really have complete knowledge to compute outcomes or to evaluate them. There will always be unknowns and unknowables that will make all such forecasts uncertain, if not even meaningless, ie you may have done just as 'well' making a random choice.

To take a political example, merely being democratic does not mean you are free. It only mean you can choose. And your choice is entirely influenced and manipulated by the promises of the politicians. They will make promises valued in terms that are valuable to you. For example the Republicans in the US promised 'Christian values' to tempt the 'Christians' to vote them. And the 'Christians' fell for it.

In effect what really happened at the polls is that you are taken captive by the democratic illusion that you are free if you can vote. The reality is that you are just giving legitimacy to one with the majority vote to possess and exercise power over all the land.

So what then in true freedom?

That is another question altogether, and may have nothing to do with choosing altogether.

I Love You

A letter:

Look up! Look out! See the light! See the BIG picture.

Life is not just about eating and drinking and getting the best fuck. You are wasting your life in futile chase after nothing in the chat rooms, on fridae and in the spas, and where else I do not know.

Are you sure you know what you are doing?

And am I the one wasting my time or you, truly, are wasting yours?

Look up! Look up! Look and see!

There are tsunamis, there are earthquakes, there are hurricanes, there are wars, there is global warming, there is bird flu, and many more will come.

Thousands died. Millions of lives are uprooted and turned topsy turvy, and just as many are in pain, sorrow and anguish.

Why, why do such things happen?

They dont matter to you?

Perhaps.

They dont touch you, for now. But surely you know of some who are here today and gone tomorrow.

All you care about is your gluttony, undisciplined abandon to sensual pleasures, wanton gratification of your horniness, without care for who you are. You may know how to care for your flesh and its carnal needs but do you really know how to take care of your true person?

But there is a reason for everything that happened in the world..

Please get out of your hole and get into the light.

The bus is still waiting for you at the bus-stop. The bus driver is God. He is waiting.

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"

Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.

I love you.

Thoughts on Words

A response to some 'Christian' blog:

Words kill and words give life.

Then surely some were murdered here. And I wonder if any dead were made alive.

And not counting the numerous non-Christians who read this site and see all the squabbling, the abuse of Christianity for political power, the ego trips, the pride, the stupidity, the superstitions, etc etc

Has anyone blessed anyone here?

And then can that God has blessed be cursed, and that cursed be blessed?

How can I curse
those whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce
those whom the LORD has not denounced?
[Num 23:8]

So it is only God who bless or curse. How much less can anyone speak to change it?

“... how can you who are evil say anything good?”, Jesus

But if it is God’s word, then it is only good, and the only proper response is Amen!

Only the wicked and evil refuses to acknowledge God’s word. And we have the example of Jacob and his sons who refuses to accept God’s word as revealed to Joseph in his dreams, not once but twice.

Now has anyone heard a donkey speak?

Well at least metaphorically speaking, in that you recognised that the word is of God, despite the lack of credentials or credibility on the part of the speaker, be it another human or any other thing.

So the liar can sometimes speak the truth too, if the listener hears truly and not judge.

And on the other hand the truth may not always be. Job’s friends were certainly speaking the truth.

Going To Church

My reponse to some blog:

If I may just sneak in a few more words.

Lets THINK purely (Phil 4:8) with the mind of Christ and not as you have been cultured by the things in this world – and churches – of these end days.

And lets think about “going to” in contrast to “being”.

I am not sure “going to” is biblical at all. But I am absolutely certain that we are called to be the church, as one part, as a unique, vital, and essential member of this living body.

And each, the temple of the Holy Spirit, is to contribute in ways gifted, to the world, and not just to your “church”.

(And in the city of Jerusalem, every building is a temple.)

And each is to do so, in whatever ways, large or small, seen or unseen, in his or own situation and circumstances, constantly, as God have placed you in accordance with his sovereign will and purpose, in all His inscrutable wisdom.

We – ie anyone who is living, feeding daily, if not constantly, on the Word – are the church whenever, wherever we are, and also anytime, everytime, all the time. So is there a need to go anywhere?

And we have only one Father, one Teacher, and one Head in this church.

And yes some members are to preach, and those so called will preach: here or there, now or later, to one person, or to many, in the day or in the night, in the dank, dark, dirty street corners, or in a brightly lighted auditorium, in letters, in speeches, or in acts, virtually or face to face, anywhere, anytime, even beyond death, as the Spirit compels, and not only in “church”.

But all, rest assured, will be fed. For if your evil earthly father will not see you go hungry, how much more your heavenly Father.

And is not the church to be the light and the salt of the earth? Is not the church to go to the rest of the world, instead of something to go to? Is there such a thing to go to at all?

The “thing” you go to is just but one of many ways to be the true church.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
[Phil 4:8]

Christian Government

Something I wrote as a comment to some blog:

Some of my thoughts, a little lengthy, and not entirely complete yet.

All power is God’s

All governments of the world are here to administer power, which fulfils God’s purposes on earth, all for the sake of the predestined and the elected. (Yes past tense, as God have chosen them, even before creation itself: You can’t choose God, God chose you.)

It does not matter who or what is the government. God is not captive nor hostage to human institutions.

Some examples: Egypt and Joseph, Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, Persia and Esther, Persia and Cyrus. In all these instances, God showed how real power is exercised, and the agencies again need not be so-called Christian. Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus are the obvious cases where secular power secularly administered serves God’s purposes, as it was ordained.

Christian President and pro-Christianity President.

There is a difference.

The former walks with God in the office of the Presidency, striving to maintain his personal witness, as everyone who is called does so, wherever he is, and whatever he is doing, within his ‘neighbourhood’ as given to him by God.

The latter sets himself out to be a champion for Christianity. Now it really does not matter whether or not the latter is a Christian to proclaim such, only that he is seen as one; it is all a matter of political expediency, as in whether, for example, Karl Rove thinks its necessary for the spin and to win the vote, eg Bush’s anti-gay stance was entirely politics.

The Republicans are really more pro-Christians than pro-Christianity. They needed the “Christian” votes.

God’s Champion is Called, not Voted

God have shown he has no need for any human to champion him or to exercise power for him. Even so, that role is not for anyone to say, even less for the masses to vote for, but only God to call, and it certainly need not be the President.

Perhaps being President disqualifies you from the role altogether, not unlike David barred from building the temple.

USA is not a Christian nation

It is obvious that USA is not doing Christianity a favour at all, for isn’t vengeance God’s and instead Christians are to turn your cheek and continue to love.

Can the USA as a nation demonstrates such true Christian value? No President will be elected nor remain in office if he does so. On this evidence alone, one can conclude that Christianity have been abused and exploited as political capital to gain votes and to get power, for its own sake, i.e. politics in another cloak.

The USA is certainly no Christian nation. No other nation can be, but only the church, the true catholic church in the world, and only it.

Balaam

The sin of Balaam is one of the sins of the end days (See Revelations). It is the sin of abusing God’s gift, akin to the sin of using God’s name in vain.

Balaam abused his God-given gift for commercial and political benefits and influence. He prophesised for whoever that pays him, perhaps in prestige, recognition or money or all of them. Whereas God’s prophets is to speak God’s word to whomever, whenever and wherever God wants his word spoken to. Samuel seeking David is an example.

Balaam is Alive

Campaigning on the basis of pro-Christianity tantamount to the sin of Balaam, for it abuses Christianity for political power.

And both the power-to-be that made this its platform and the voters who vote for it, sin. Both parties are doing it for their own power’s sake and less, if at all, for God’s. God was only in name, vainly.

So Balaam continues to live in the modern world. And no one will listen to a donkey, will they?

Anti-Christ’s Strategy

Finally how more devious and evil a plan to subvert the church can there be than for the devil to be a christian and to lead the church, or the one seemingly so, from within.

It is not for nothing the beast is called the anti-Christ. Like a reflection in a mirror, the image is completely true to the subject but differs only in one aspect, that it is false and not true.

Christianity in the USA may now be more political than Christian, eg unable to distinguish Bush’s anti-gay stance as political and mistaking it for ‘Christian values’, and therefore it is seemingly strange to separate church from state.