29 Mar 2006

After a long long while I am back,
But as I have predicted it turns out that blogging was just another fad for me. It promised to make my voice heard but the number of silly advertisements that I got far out numbered the comments and most of them are from friends anyway. Not that this detracts from the validity of their comments but I don't think my views are going to get far this way. I will have to go back to trying to get myself published which is the only realistic way of doing it.
Thought scame and go and the penalty for not putting them down is you forget them.
The thing that I have been thinking about on lately is seeking the truth and the fact the "Quod Est Veritas" should be everyone'e warcry. Sure we need to do the things to survive but in our psare time we spend some of it seeking the truth. For many imporant things we just take it for granted. We just assume that it is true without investigating it. We may not have the time to verify everything but at least in the most imporant things such as "is Jesus God?"
Christians that take it for granted but Paul says we must work out our salvation. We must ask ourselves do we truly believe? PEople who brush over this often will have faith crises when they are older when it will be much much worse. PEople who have it younger then to resolve it in a happy way though not always. In the end the illustration is chicken pox. If you get it when you are young you might die but it is not as worse as whne you are old.
Some non-Christian just only look at the points against that is not even thougth up and judge by themselves and take it as as true. They have delegated the most imporant duty of seeking the truth to others but even the smartest makie mistakes and one should not delegate this because in the end if one makes a mistake at least one doesn't have to regret delegating this duty even though we enjoy blaming others.
There are many to barriers to truth. Now I will not confined it to discussion about Jesus but the truth can be seeked everywhere and in its own way it is important. It can serious questions like is the universe expanding or collapsing to the best nasi lemak to be found in Kedah. Though the consequences are different but what is perceive as the truth will guide us in our decision making. Not all questions should be pursued with full effort.
The danger is lies can be seen as truth. Lies can masquerade as truth, truth can be misrepresented, the truth be seen as the lie. Whatever the situation the truth is not found and because of that wrong decisions are made. Is a foetus a human life? The answer will determine how we approach the issue of abortion. Even our own eyes can mislead us and witnesses may not be truth. But what differentiate the truth from lies is there is evidence but even in this respect even lies can have "evidence".
In the end we must weigh up everything and to do this we must not be intellectually lazy but strive to consider BOTH sides of the argument and rebuttals to it and make a judgement for ourselves.
Consider the Iraq war. Was it right to invade? I have study the arguments on both sides carefully and at the end of it I support the war but that is not the point. The point is we can see a lot of people taking either position without first determining the arguments on both sides. They just take a default position such as all wars are wrong. My father whom I greatly resepct is a pacifist and I respect him for that because in his eyes and from his analysis of hisotry except for a few exceptions institutions brought about by wars in genral don't stand the test of time. He will compare Malaysia's independence gained by negotiation to Indonesia's which was gained by violence and how both countries subsequently turn out. I would disagree because though force is not always good but sometimes it is necessary. The Khmer Rouge would have gone on killing had Vietnam not invaded Cambodia. Yet Vietnam was never called an imperialist nation though they occupied Cambodia for over 12 years before there were any elections. SO we are both right force was the lesser of two evil but up till today Cambodia is still in the grips of Hun Sen who was allied to the Vietnamese.
History in the end can be the judge whether the was was right or not and the picture will not be pretty. We like to gloss over it but the truth is nothing is perfect and there will be flaws but if greater good comes out of it then I think it is only fair we judge it as correct. However even then we have a problem. We do not know it will turn out and history have shown us that to invade there is a problem not to invade there is a problem. In the end we realise of man's endeavour is in vian and Death devour us all. In the end all we have is the Truth. What is the Truth? IS the truth is there will be reincarnation and amn will get according to his deeds in the next life or is the truth is God is in control and and if we can hypothetically follow his perfect will then all will be solved. Then it leads to a conumdrum: what is his will? And again again it is a crazy thing to explore and much of the ills stem from sincerely mistaken people deluded into thinking they are doing the Almighty's will.
Back to history;can only be so much of a guide. I think the gist of the matter is please investigate and study both isde of the argument so that if history prove you wrong at least you can have the cold comfort of not saying anything daft like " Iraq was much better under Saddam" for the simple reason reason he is a Sunni. Have you read a Shiite or Kurd talk like this lately?

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