Saying that you're not at all concerned with the path that you'll take eventually

Having to listen to others discuss about their plans for their future

While maintaining that smile

And repeating that chant which you've been telling yourself.

Wherever the river floats me to,

That'd be my rest place.

Yet there must be a certain spot which you hold some fascination for.

Some specific place where you feel you want to be

Though knowing where your preference lies

You maintain that non-commital stance

Being fine with everything and anything is your facade.

And when the die is cast and the results come rolling by

You couldn't do anything but watch as your fate is being determined

You want to say with a smile that you're really fine

And you succeeded in fooling even the most seasoned liar.

But whomever you fool, you can't fool past your heart

Even so, there's nothing you can do to turn back time

To redo things so the ending might be different.

However you're feeling

No matter how overwhelmed you feel by the growing disappointment

You'll still have to suck it up and move on

Give yourself some time to yourself alone

But that's the most that you can take

Without dropping that carefully guarded front that you've been holding up for months.

I know that I should not whine about my misfortunes. Because no matter how bad I think my misfortune is, it can't ever compare to the misfortunes of so many other people. Especially for a young person with no greying hairs living in a developed country with access to technology and who does not have any outright family or financial problems or whatsoever. So should I whine and complain about certain bad things which just happen to happen to me for no reason at all, it's unfair to the many other people in this world who don't even have that privilege to complain about such things.

But still, since a blog exists to allow the blogger to vent his or her frustrations and express his or her feelings and thoughts, I shall be selfish and go ahead and whine all I want. After all, they say that if you force yourself to keep things inside you you'll got internal injuries. (ok this is just crap, said by me)

In all my life until now, I've lost my ez link card a total of 4 times. Twice were when I was in secondary school and I lost that blue ezlink card with my photo on it. Another twice were during this year when I switched to using the adult ezlink card. The second adult ezlink card which I bought after I lost the other one was new and barely a day old. Somehow I'm just a person who's prone to dropping such cards. And after the 4th time I lost it, I learnt my lesson and I've been paying extra attention to my belongings.

But still it wasn't enough because it seems that my forgetfulness applies to other possessions as well. I bought this pair of ordinary black heels cos I'm starting work on an admin position and though it shouldn't be mandatory to wear heels, I thought that it's better to wear one to work to not look that sloppy. I left it at HG the ice cream shop after accompanying my friend to eat her ice cream and fortunately the store person helped me keep it when went back to get it. But then later I left it on the bus again while I'm alighting at the busstop near my house! And the bus just left like that!

Ok granted, the bus is not a living thing and so couldn't have known that a passenger has left her stuff onboard and warned me about it. And I was so sad initially when I first realised that my hand is empty and holding nothing. Two scares in a day but I'll never get it back after the second time I misplaced it. How careless can I get? Is it that difficult to just remember the additional plastic bag you have with you and just take it when you're leaving a place? I don't know why I keep forgetting little stuff like this. Ok, the shoes aren't very expensive, the price is quite average, but still, it's not like you don't feel sad after losing something you bought, all in the same day!

I really don't want to think bad about myself but seriously, I've a serious bout of forgetfulness which I hope to get over. Maybe I should try tying my hand to any plastic bags I'm holding, that way I won't ever forget to bring it along with me when I leave a place. Or I'll lug a big backpack around and just stash everything inside.

Ok, enough of an ordinary person's rantings about the goings-on of an ordinary day. I was thinking about this question which occurred to me quite long ago.

Why is it that when Adam and Eve's children mated amongst themselves in order to continue the bloodline of humans (assuming that it is scientifically impossible to prove that this story is untrue), it's considered as normal and not as incest? When did the occurance of mating among the children of the same set of parents become 'unholy', 'sinful', 'dirty' and 'unnatural' along the timeline of history since the time of Adam and Eve? Why is it that such notions and beliefs came to be held by most humans nowadays, when it was fine for it to happen in 4000 B.C?

Well, I'm not trying to say that incest is correct since logically if it's wrong in the first place, Adam and Eve's children wouldn't have been able to mate with each other since God would have forbidden them from doing so, so don't get me wrong and sue me for trying to spread unethical values online. It's just that I was wondering, if feelings of altruism came from our likeliness with God since we were made in His image, and if morals and ethics are present in society because of our innate conscience which subconsciously try to obey the will of God, then where do such feelings of disgust which most humans get when confronted with the idea of incest come from? If we couldn't control these feelings, if just by thinking about the idea of incest, we get grossed out and think that it's freaky and unnatural, then wouldn't it be safe to assume that these feelings exist because of the way we were being made, because God wanted us to be this way?

Then if so, why is it that Adam and Eve's children were able to procreate among themselves and yet if you try to do it now you'll get arrested under the rightful law? Did God make us differently as compared to Adam and Eve's generation? Is our hardwiring different from theirs in the past?

If incest only became 'wrong' after the population of humans have grown to a number large enough for it to become 'unnatural', then it would become logical if you look at it from a scientific point of view. Because if the human population on earth is large enough for there to be diversity of genes, it would help the human population should they procreate with people outside their immediate family and to procreate with your immediately blood-related family would be disastrous to the human bloodline since this would reduce the survival rate of the offspring.

But then how would you explain the grossed out feelings we get when faced with the idea of incest? Could it be that along the lines of realising the need to spread out the diversity of our genes, we humans have somehow 'evolved' to become in such a way that procreating with closely blood related people would become undesirable? Could humans even change their hardwiring in the form of their mindsets through evolution? Now the evolution I'm referring to in this case is not the one in Darwinism where humans have evolved from apes, it's the evolution that took place over the years of human progressment as they slowly adapted to their environment and began to evolve according to what their environment asks of them. I don't think humans evolved from apes because I believe in the creation of Man by God but it'll be hard to dispute evolvement within the human race over centuries. So could it be possible for such feelings against the idea of incest to be developed along the process of human evolution? If this is really so, then how about my previous theory about God hardwiring it into us to be naturally against incest? And this ties in with the idea of altruism as well, whether it was a necessary sentiment developed by humans for them to look out for each other to ensure the continuation of the human race or something which is already present in us since God made us have such thing as conscience when He made us.

Well, that's about it. I wonder if I'm clear about all that I'm trying to express. I'm going to do more research of my own and blog about my final conclusion about this topic in my next post. Starting work on Friday and I'm hoping that I would be able to have a com to my disposal so I can abuse it to my likings (so I'll be able to go online to chat, play online games and check up some other stuff). Well that's if the job is so slack that I finish up all my work in a jiffy and just spend the rest of my day relaxing in the air-coned office. Oh if I'm unable to go online and do the things I like, then I would say bye-bye and quit in a jiffy. I don't really care about not having an income right now during this long break. If I have to rot at work then I would rather not be working instead. Otherwise that'll be a waste of my time which I can use to do things which I actually enjoy and which enrich me.

Oh and to those people wondering why aren't I gonna apply to any overseas uni when I wanted to go overseas to study so much a few months ago. I don't usually like to write about much of my personal stuff here but I shall do that for now. It's because my father said that he doesn't have the confidence that his business would definitely not fail in the middle of my overseas studying should I go for an overseas education, especially in this kind of bleak economic situation. And I've been trying to widen my options here. Worse come to worse, should I go to FASS because NUS decide to skip my first two choices, I'll just go for theology as one of my majors (can two majors even be held at the same time in fass??!) I don't even know how it works. Well at least this is the only interest I have which I can study about. Though I don't really know what theology students study about and WHAT kind of JOB would such a student find after graduation.

Well I'm sorry to say that I still don't know what are God's plans for me. I'll just let God open whatever doors which he deem is for me and I'll just enter it. I might step through the threshold grudgingly but I'll definitely do it. Let's just hope that there is an obvious sign hanging over the door he wants me to go through.

Ok, I'm not going to lie and say that I typed this up within half an hour. I think i must have spent one and a half hours thinking through all this. And now its 5 in the morning and my head is whirling from the dizziness I got from the constant staring at the com screen and my lack of rest. Until the next time.
 

Psalms 31:9

Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
       my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
       my soul and my body with grief.

Nah, I'm not saying that I'm like that, that would be too exaggerated. For even though you might be feeling sad, there is always another person who's feeling a hundred times more sadness than you, who experienced a much greater loss than you, yet he still pulled himself together in the end and got over his sadness. So what's a little disappointment to me? I often tell myself this, should I feel myself being sucked into a hollow depth of misery. Though you can't recover almost immediately, at least you can get it over with after your personal period of self-mourning and self-pity. The world is a cruel place, everyone's gonna leave you behind if you can't keep up and if you refuse to get over your personal demons. Everyone has their own problems, they're not gonna help you truly and sincerely even if you asked them for help, because there can never be anyone who truly understands your predicament. What's fake and insincere words of consolation and encouragement when they are being said to absolve the speaker of any guilt from not doing anything to help? I believe that there is no true altruism because I don't think that anyone would do any acts of kindness without having some benefits to themselves. Whenever someone helps someone else, he gets a sense of satisfaction, he feels better about himself, he can think to himself, "Well I'm a good person 'cos I helped someone today." Thus human beings only helped one another not because they truly care for that person, but because they want to feel better about themselves, because doing so would actually make them feel worthier, as though they are worthy to be alive on this earth.

Ok, I admit. I was a little way too extreme just now. There must exist some people in this world who does acts of kindness not to make themselves feel worthier, but really to better the other person's life. One thing for sure, I don't know if I can do it at all. I used to be full of concern for those people around me. But gradually I realise that these feelings of concern for those other than yourself, they don't always get appreciated, often they'll go to waste and disappear. And along with that, my feelings of altruism slowly disappeared as well.

Most Christians would naturally feel sad should they see people whom they know leave their church, renounce their faith in God and turn their backs on Him forever. But for some strange reason, I don't think I feel that way anymore. Perhaps I've never seen anyone whom I really care about leave church, or perhaps I've never truly cared enough for someone else to feel that much for him. But the truth is that I don't particularly feel any sadness at seeing people leave church and become disbelievers of God. There are so many people in this world who disbelieve in Him, what difference does it make to add a few more persons to that equation? Similarly, I don't really seem to have the joy of seeing another person come to know God. To me, that's a feeling that is long lost, far gone into the planes of nothingness, and only God knows where they have disappeared into.

Yes I know that I'm in a dangerous phase right now, I might just wake up one day and tell myself that I'm going to stop believing in God. But I know for sure that that day would never happen. You might say that I'm over-confident in something that not even the most seasoned child of God can say for sure. But I know that the truth that God exists in this world would never leave me. Due to various reasons, I know that though I might grow distant from God, I would never deny His existence in my heart. To me, though the existence of God might be non-scientific, though it might be illogical in the physical sense, but from what I see, it is completely logical for such an existence to be there, living alongside human civilisation. I wouldn't want to go into that now, for that would evoke my strong feelings of belief and I might go on and on about it. But I do know that I would never be able to deny the existence of such an All-seeing, omnipotent, omnipresent being.

I wouldn't stop going to church. Even if I missed some sessions, it would be because I got something else going on, such as an unexpected illness, an important work occasion or some other events. Yes some devout Christians would say that going to church every week is mandatory, it's a sign of your faith and commitment to God. But since I prefer my journey with God to be unreligious, to be more of a personal exchange with Him rather than a boring chore, I would dismiss such things as complete 100% attendance in church. Though I wouldn't cancel some events just to attend church, it doesn't mean that my faith in Him is less, it doesn't give anyone the right to say that I'm blasphemous, most of all it doesn't give anyone the right to judge me. If you've got the time to judge someone else's actions, why don't you go and improve on your own personal relationship with God and think of ways to stop your straying heart?

If we are to do as you say,
Without any complaints,
Without any protests,
Silently and willingly,
Will You be able to guarantee us,
A whole future of bliss?
Will You be able to guarantee us,
Success without a slimmer of failure?
Will you be able to bring us up on a neverending road of happiness
Without letting us slide down into despair?
If You say you will do all that,
That You will let us have the happiness that we're all looking for,
Then how would You explain those times
When You've let us down?
How would You cover up these past mistakes of yours
When you brought us up on a high,
Only to let us fall flat down on our faces,
Letting us feel the full impact of our disappointment?
You are so full of contradictions.
At times You make me want to rejoin your league of faith again,
Yet at times you make me want to denounce it all as a charade.
So tell me,
What is Your true intention,
What is Your true wish for all of us?
I hope I'll be able to know it one day,
Your plans for the hope-weary people.
 

You wasted your acne filled years away

By chasing skirts and giving out your number.

You thought that you're popular in your own right.

I didn't know any better and believed in your falsity

The red inked result slip,

You held it in your hand and cried.

For the entire day you laid on your bed

And teared like you've never sobbed before.

I didn't know what's happening,

Was young and ignorant at that time.

So I just got out of your way,

Just in case I got yelled at again.

Your parents wanted to comfort you.

Good parents they were indeed,

For wanting to shine a new ray of hope into your life.

You thanked them and left this place for another.

You became your old self again.

Self-important, oozing of arrogance.

My eyes were slighted,

I thought you were cool and intellectual.

But that ray of hope that's shone into your life

Lost its brightness soon after.

That fleeting time is just a temporary oasis

For you to continue living under an blissful illusion.

Hard reality still has to come some time.

You searched for that goal in life,

But found none eventually.

Perhaps it was my blighted perception of you,

You blamed the heavens and everyone,

But never yourself.

The kindness of your benefactors you took for granted.

After having squeezed them dry,

You came back and asked for more.

All the while maintaining that air of superiority.

I then realised how disgusted I am with you.

You took much from others,

Yet never gave them back what you could.

You lived on like a parasite,

Lashing out at those around you.

You crushed my dreams,

And made me wallow in my self-despairing waters.

I no longer hope or long for anything.

I no longer ask for any wishes to be granted.

If hopes exist to be crushed,

And desires exist to be trampled upon,

Then I would rather skip my share of these.

A person could still go on living without these.

It just means that the sparkle has gone,

That radiance has been smitten out.

I've become less obvious in a crowd of people.

But still I'm here.

Just breathing, it's a miracle.

And that's all that matters.

Well I wrote this because I got nothing better to do. It can be real, it can be made up. And I know that this is really a crappy piece of poetry cause it lacks difficulty and depth. But whatever, it's not like I'm aiming to be a poet or lit teacher.

Nosey people really irk me a lot, especially when they are so inquisitive about your affairs that they want to dig out every small detail from you. And no don't get me wrong, I'm extremely fine with close friends being nosey with me because it is a sign of their concern for you. In fact I love telling them about my plans for the future, my thoughts etc. BUT there are some people who are not close to you at all who suddenly become interested in you because of some special circumstances. And yes it's the release of the A level results which have brought about this sudden spike in nosiness among people. These nosey people leave you alone usually because they are not interested in knowing you personally or that they are not concerned with trying to improve their relationship with you. Then with the catalyst being the release of the A level results they suddenly become your personal consultant, wanting to know more about how you did, what are your plans in the future, when in fact they don't even give a damn about you before that. Talk about hypocrisy. Everyone is just looking out for their own interests, everyone is just looking for something to pass the time, everyone is just wanting to compare their results with that of others. And not only that, sometimes even after you told them about your future desired plans which might happen to be quite personal to you, they tell others behind your back about it. And before you go wondering "Damn I didn't even tell this person how did she know?" you can't take back the words you said last time and must live through it already. Well I shall not go into why people want to know about your affairs when they are just acquaintances. All I want to say is that I'm irritated. Really irritated. What is the use of knowing these kinds of things when you don't even bother with talking to the person in the first place? Nothing but to satisfy that dark monster called innate curiosity, and that's already a fine phrase to replace 'nosiness' and plain KPOness.

Well I sound as though I did poorly for As and so I'm ranting on and on about others but the truth is I did quite well for it. Not all As, not as good as my friends, not the scholarly kind of results, but yet I'm still extremely satisfied with it. In fact I'm quite proud of it. But something with me is that I sort of don't feel like telling others my results after I told some others initially. Because firstly, I'm tired of repeating myself, secondly, it's enough to know that I did quite well, quite fine, quite ok, anything more than that like the exact grades and stuff, that's nosiness. And I HATE nosiness. That's just a self-satisfactory act, inflicting annoyance on the other party even.

Just in case one is wondering where in the Bible does it speak of Original Sin, it can be found in Romans 5:12-21, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Psalm 51:5 and Psalm 58:3)

“If a man were created evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable to do anything else than what he was made for."

- Justin Martyr, someone against the concept of Original Sin

If we couldn't choose to be good from the moment we were born, due to the original sin passed down to us since the times of Adam, then shouldn't we not be held accountable for our sins? Since we couldn't help being such sinful beings in the flesh from the moment we're born, then why should we still be punished for our sins?

It is thus a no wonder that atheists say that they are sick of Christians trying to impose these set of beliefs on not only the other side of the camp, but also to all humans in this world. They say that God is not a compassionate God because He let all humans be born sinful, and then sent a God incarnate in flesh, Jesus, down to earth to forcefully 'save' the sinful humans who did not even want that 'saving' in the first place. Then God says that if you do not accept Jesus, then you'll go to hell. So to them, it's like Free Will is a whole load of crap because they do not see the Free Will in all these.

Ok, to me, if not for my strong belief in the existence in God, I would have already thought that Christianity is a load of bullcrap. Because what I've narrated just now, it sounds quite logical to me. I mean it's like we humans exist just to serve the megalomaniac needs of this being called God? It's true that we do not ask to be born. It's true that we do not ask to be born evil, in fact who wants to be born evil? It's also true that because of all the Christian propaganda that we humans are so sinful and lousy creatures, we become susceptible to this concept of needing the grace of God. So all in all, you could not blame someone for saying that Christianity is a whole lot of ancient propaganda (which survived till today, surprisingly, because there exists inherent faults and dilemma) designed to help control the masses since Constantine's rule over Rome.

Well the Christian's answer would be that we are prone to the dispostion of commiting sin, not that we do not have a Free Will to choose whether or not we want to sin, just that we are prone to doing it. There you have it. At the end of the day, you can still choose to sin against God or not, even though you are in a position to want to commit the sin.

Ha, being a Christian is so tiring. Seems that being one means that you have to worry about this, worry about that, about whether or not you offended God, about whether or not the Gates of Heaven would be closed to you forever, about whether your passion for God has died down and become 'lukewarm'. So many things to bother with! It's a no wonder why some people choose to be an atheist or a 'freethinker' (as is a common word here in Singapore), because they think it's much better off living your life without worrying about whether you're a bad or good person.

Atheists think that they do not need God for they believe that since they are not committing things like arson or murder, they do not inflict harm onto others and so they have not sinned. To them, sins are when you hurt others in the process of sinning and most of the 'sins' that we humans fall prey to, such as certain sins of the flesh, do not harm others. And so going by this logic, it's alright to live according to your own code of morals, according to your ethics the way you command it.

It's like a slippery slope, once you've taken the first step, you'll feel less and less restrained by the established standard of morals and then gradually you'll think that it's alright to go down that slope somemore. Things which are seen as really unthinkable of in the past are becoming more and more acceptable right now and several years down the road, we might find ourselves loosening up even more as compared to the present.

There exists Free Will. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who disbelieve in God right now. Well this is a realisation that came to me only after some enlightenment from the online community. Seems like I was feeling rather 'emo' just now when I talked about there being no Free Will.

A friend commented that she thinks it's better to have simple faith, believing in God without confusing yourself with such and that. But it's different for me. I can never settle for simple, or some people call, blind faith. I hate this term 'blind faith' so much it actually irks me a whole lot when people use it to comment on Christians. That's why I don't want to be a Christian with simple/blind faith.

I'm sorry but I don't really agree fully with this. There are some circumstances in which even if you had hoped, you still wouldn't get anything out of it. Then God's people would say, “Because this is not what God wants for you. So God didn't let it happen.” Easy for them to say, difficult for them to comprehend the full extent of the hurt that came with having your hopes crushed.

So I don't think it's always the right way to harbour hope. Sometimes if something had to turn out in one way, it had to happen that way and it's just too bad that you can't have it. And when you're in this kind of situation, what is there to hope for when there is no use even if you have tons of hope enough for several people? When there's ain't no changing it, there's ain't no changing it.
 

Your mouth moves relentlessly.

My eyes follow it closely,

Wondering when would it stop moving,

So I could interrupt you and get going.

On the screen you keep typing,

My eyes follow its dancing,

But my heart is far away from following.

I keep wondering when would you stop bothering me

And I keep dropping hints endlessly.

It is such a shame that you couldn't get it,

All I want is for you to stop being so annoying.
 

It just really got to me how much I've already screwed up for the As. And I'm not the paranoid kind of student who says that his/her results are very lousy when in actual fact after they get back their results it's an A. When I say I'm really gonna screw up something, or in this case I've already screwed it up, I mean it and it's going to happen. Well, at least I'll be able to confirm my lousy grades when I get back my results in March.

And I'm not saying all this without any lack of basis. I know I screwed up for my GP because after my exams finished I did more research on my own about 'Science vs Religion' and then it just hit me like a ultra strong tsunami tidal wave that I had totally written a lousy piece of crap which I had the cheek to call an 'argumentative essay'.Yes you might be thinking that my English doesn't seem all that bad, that I seem to have some ideas going on in my head. BUT that is only after the As when I've finished my papers! Why can't I have acquired more knowledge before I took my GP paper? If that's the case I would have written a much better essay, not that lousy, unsightly, crappish piece of rubbish which I handed in! And trust me, when I say that something is crap, it really is crap. And I'm not being self-derogatory either. I'm merely stating the simple truth. I. Am. Screwed. Already.

And whenever I think about it (which is actually quite often when I'm not preoccupied with things), this heaviness just kind of settles on my heart and I have to listen to some upbeat song in order to get rid of it. Really, it is such a depressing experience. And because of this I always can't shake off the feeling that I'm a failure. Oh crap, I'm having such negative and pessimistic thoughts again. But it's just too bad for me because the As and especially Gp are actually very important towards a student's choice (or lack of) of his/her future path in the academic area. And I not only screwed up my GP, I also managed to screw up my Econs and Math as well. Yes, I really hope that someone would give me a painless death right now so I don't have to face getting that traitorous piece of result slip in March. I would either 1) cry on the spot or 2) faint on the spot due to extreme heartbreak and sadness which is too much to bear. And all those people shrieking and jumping with joy around me would blind me with all their radiance while I go off somewhere to sulk and wallow in my self pity.

And I would definitely not tell anyone, not even a single soul about my grades. Because I foresee that they would be so bad that I would not have that bit of courage to let others know. Oh God, just let me go off to some remote place and die off silently, without anyone interfering. And then I'll just wither away like a flower which is past its youthful blooming season. And in the end I'll just become wormfood. Well at least I still have some use to society, which is to help nourish its greenery, no matter how minimal.

Ok, I was just crapping towards the end. But the front parts are really my sincere thoughts. I've never felt so miserable before in my life, and I have a feeling this is only the beginning. The worst is yet to come. I hope there'll be a sort of veil separating me from the rest of the happy people on that day, so I won't be even more affected by the comparison of their happy faces to my gloomy, depressed one.

DNA is a code, a language. It can't be created from mere chaos or coincidences. It stores information that scientists today have not grasped fully. That is proof for Intelligent Design.

I happen to like this hypothesis a lot. Really. A. Lot.

Read the site below to get a more in-depth view.

http://cosmicfingerprints.com/ifyoucanreadthis.htm

I have come to think that it is not really about whether or not there are evidences to prove or disprove God. An atheist might say he doesn't believe in God because there are simply not enough evidences to indicate that such a supernatural being exist. He might think that he disbelieves in God because of the overwhelming load of information researched by scientists over the years which disproved the events described in the Bible.

And on the other hand, a religious person might say that he believes in God because of the many clues around him which led him to believe that there truly exist an omnipotent God, such as the many testimonies he heard around him, such as his opinion that the earth and all its living things couldn't have just sprung up like that without someone creating them.

But when the atheist is told all these by the religious person, he would be inclined to think that there could not be anything like real miracles occuring in these people's lives, that the miracles that happened are just mere coincidences, not orchestrated by a greater mastermind behind the scenes. And to the theory of Intelligent Design, he might think that there is nothing special about his surroundings, that nothing around him has been designed 'intelligently', that if ID existed, why then are there still incurable diseases and natural disasters? If Earth has been 'intelligently' designed, wouldn't it be a perfect place for humans to live then? Why then are there still so much suffering?

Of course, the religious person would go back to the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and how they sinned and so the consequences of sin are delivered down their descendents etc. And the atheist would say that religious people always use the idiotic story of Adam and Eve whenever they want to explain why the Earth is so not 'perfect' per se.

And when faced with the debate over whether the Earth is 6000 years old or billions of yeard old, both the atheist and the religious person would have their own theory which is inclined towards their beliefs. The atheist would say that the evidences provided by radiometric-dating and other geological research done on the Earth's sediments, strata, fossil fuels etc all point to the earth being billions of years old. However the religious person would say that those scientific methods used by the scientists were wrong, that the method carbon dating is highly inaccurate, that the earth must be 6000 years old because of the genealogies listed in the Bible all the way from Adam and Eve. Either that, or the religious person would say that the Bible does not actually say specifically that the earth is 6000 years old. In order to come up with an explanation to accommodate both religion and science at the same time, they might say that the earth has been created billions of years ago before God created the first humans. That's why the earth is found to be billions of years old and the genealogy in the Bible starting from Adam's family is 6000 years old. Some old earth creationists even said that the 'day' in Genesis refers not to our present 24 hours but they actually mean a much longer period of time than that.

Well, basically my point is that it is not the so-called 'evidences' that lead people to a disbelief or belief in God. It is the inclination within a person towards the having of faith that is the actual determinant. Because as I've explained just now, both the atheist and the religious person, when faced with the same set of theories and evidences, would come up with different sets of responses. Despite the validity and soundness of each of their explanations, the other side would not be that inclined to go over to the other camp that easily. If an explanation does not tie in with their belief, they would come up with new arguments against it, convincing themselves that they are right in their beliefs.

So as Pastor Khong once said loooong ago, that you can never argue your way to God, that it's about having faith. Of course, atheists always say that religious people are stupid, ignorant people because they believe using blind faith, and not have any concrete evidence towards what they believe in. That's why they are stupid, because how can you just wholeheartedly believe in something which you can't even prove is real and existing?

As I realised by myself over time, it really just boils down to whether or not a person wants to believe. It has nothing to do with the many debates and arguments against or for a particular thing. It just has to do with the inclination towards believing or not believing.

I'm having the niggling feeling that I'm making no sense at all, that I'm just spouting rubbish, crap. Well, I hope not. And I'm beginning to think that NO ONE EVER reads my blog, or at least carefully word for word. Because I strongly welcome any opinions at all on my posts. It ups the fun level.

What is up with these chain emails about God and Jesus Christ, saying that they must be forwarded, in order to raise awareness about, say, an anti-christ movie or to tell others that Jesus Christ our Lord is not to be humiliated. The way I see it, the use of the name Jesus Christ in these hoax emails is already a humiliation to his name itself. And the most annoying part of these chain emails is not the fact that I've to receive them and to tell the person who sent me that it was a hoax, it's the fact that they always, and might I repeat, always, say this at the end of the email in order to pressure the recipient into forwarding the message.

Remember, Jesus said 'Deny Me on earth and I'll deny you before my Father'.

Well, this is really quite annoying. To think the context of this statement was completely ignored and used in such a way instead. Well, that says a lot about followers of Christ. They were the ones who said that atheists who do not know the wisdom of the Bible often misquote Bible verses with the intention of criticising Christianity. Yea, and look, the one who started these kinds of chain emails (well he/she might not even be a christian in the first place) are using such specific verses to their advantage, disregarding the actual meaning of it. How nice and sincere.

And by the way, on something else entirely unrelated to what I was saying before, if Jesus said that, wouldn't it mean that his loyal disciple, Peter, would not go to heaven? (since he denied that he was Jesus' disciple three times) Well then wouldn't that contradict with what Jesus told Peter long before he was captured and crucified, that He would give Peter the "keys to heaven", Matthew 16:19. Sometimes I wish the Bible could be more clear on what it says. Then there wouldn't be so much dispute over whether it is just a series of fabricated stories made up by the authorities long ago to control the masses through the imposition of fear, or whether it is just a really good book with good morals to follow but that it is not to be taken as God-inspired, or whether it is really the undisputed word of God, to be taken for real literally every single verse.

Well, it's probably meant to be like that, representing different accounts to different people who read it. Because God probably knew that people are going to be divided over the physical remnants of His word, so He made use of this to distinguish the 'faithful' and the 'unfaithful'. I mean, if someone were to dismiss the Bible as something fabricated and definitely not God-inspired, judging from the many inconsistencies in it and the assumption that God doesn't exist, then it would be saying quite a lot about that someone's inclinations towards the belief in an all-empowering God.
 

Ok, apparently, some of my friends find that I'm a person who's difficult to talk to because I'm forceful in my own opinions, that I think I'm always right. Well, that's pretty true. Because I'm confident in my own ability to form coherent thoughts that's why I think 'm right. I don't mind people telling me that to my face but it's when people talk to one another behind my back that I get quite ruffled. Note, I'm not pissed. Getting angry over it and getting affected by it is different. If I say that I'm affected by this opinion which others have of me, it doesn't mean that I'm pissed. It's just that I know that in the past I might seem as though I have some extreme views and that I sound argumentative because come on, let's face it. People are immature when they are young and I probably sound extremist myself because I'm still immature last time. But right now, I feel that I'm not one bit forceful when it comes to expressing my thoughts. When it comes to discussing controversial issues I probably sound forceful because of the feelings that I feel towards the subject matter but then, I've learnt to tone it down a little because people mature and I've come to know the true meaning of not imposing my views on others. I think that right now even when talking about controversial issues, I enter the conversation with a discussive kind of attitude rather than an argumentative kind of mood. That's different. Sometimes I seriously, and sincerely want to just express my views, with no strings attached. I mean it's like I'm just discussing about something, not trying to promote or sell something. But then I think that even when I've changed in this way, it's hard for others to change their opinion towards me. It's just that sometimes once you've had a certain opinion of a person you develop some kind of biasness against him/her and that biasness would remain there forever unless you try to look at a person from another light, which few people can do, because humans are naturally looking for some weak or bad points on others and they zoom in on these areas because of their tendency to be critical. I don't know, maybe that doesn't apply to all, maybe that's just my own opinion which no one single person on this earth share, but heck. Do I look as though I care anymore? What I feel, my own feelings, my own opinions, is the most important thing in the end, period. Well maybe it's what Jesus feels which is the most important, but definitely not other humans. Humans change, but I suppose God doesn't (and no, God is still the same God in the Old Testament as in the New Testament, atheists just like to criticise the God in the NT saying that He's such a violent God who doesn't love us as much as he proclaimed to be so). Anyway, I like going into verbal discussions about controversial issues which would get people thinking and fired up. I mean, that's a lot more interesting than talking about say, common complaints Singaporeans have towards their country, or say, gossiping about others. Again, that's just my own opinion. Now do I have to say that everytime I express something which is remotely similar to my thoughts? I suppose I have to, since sometimes people just get the wrong idea, unintentionally of course. And since some people do not like to hear anyone expressing any religious vs scientific views, it would be more socially polite to just become a mute on these areas. I mean, even when you're just simply talking about it, it might seem that you are imposing your views on others and being forceful, which is of course not true. I'm someone who despises street evangelism or even any attempts to verbally convert another person, so even when I think I'm just discussing about something, say evolution vs creationism, it might seem as though I'm being forceful because of the mere fact that I'm talking about something controversial. It has nothing to do with the very neutral kind of tone that I have, it has something to do with people's biasness and tendency to link someone being extremist to a certain type of opinion. And that's all I've to say on this.