Wednesday, July 14, 2010

O,O

Kid: so Ross you can eat pork?
R: (O,O) uhh yeah?

Grinning Goat at 7/14/2010 12:49:00 PM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Friday, July 09, 2010

All these godly things

I was told before that there's no way I can see the apple if I refuse to see it.

You see the problem with abstract things such as faith is that, well at least to me there's always the benefit of the doubt. For something that can neither be proved or disproved, how can one say with an absolute certainty which faith represents the absolute truth?

Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is not.

Somebody told me once, you see in all the textbook the drawing of Jesus is that of a white man, but to the Africans Jesus is probably a black man.
And I thought there's nothing wrong with having a black Jesus (never mind that he was from Israel). In fact I'm rather fond of what this person said because he does not take things very literally. And religion is very much a matter of interpretation in my opinion. Like literature. Because surely there's got to be more than one way of looking at things?

I heard a priest say before that if you do not believe in (insert a particular religious doctrine/figure), you are going to hell. I found that to be very presumptuos and small minded. But mostly presumptuous. And arrogant.

Because how do you, a mere mortal (never mind that you spent half your life in a religious school) know what the higher power is thinking?

My outrageous answer to this outrageous statement from the priest back then was a simple (and perhaps rather rebellious): what if I choose not to believe in the existence of a small minded and petty God?

The question follows then, can we choose what kind of God we want to believe in? If half the world is right, then we definitely can. Because isn't the process of adopting a religion involves choosing what God you want to believe in? And it so happens that this priest choose to believe in such God that I refuse to acknowledge. A matter of a difference in opinion. Which is hardly worthy of this 'punishment of going to hell'.

Oh this reminds me of a scene in Boston Legal. It goes like this:

Alan Shore: Denny do you believe in God?
Denny Crane: yes
Alan Shore: why?
Denny Crane: What do you mean why?
Alan Shore: Why do you believe in God?
Denny Crane: Because if it turns out there's none, all's well and if it turns out there's one I'm safe.

So what kind of a God IS the higher power?

I'd really like to think that the higher power would be beyond being small minded and petty, condemning any non believers (when they have every right to be because there really is no way to prove or disprove) straight to this 'hell' of the priest. (yes I'm calling it HIS hell because I certainly don't buy it and therefore it exists only in his imagination. Yes, an arrogant statement I know but how fitting a retort under the circumstances! And mind you, I am not even certain that what he says is what the religion wishes to convey to the public which means you know that it is rather disgraceful to have this fella who was supposedly 'a man of the cloth' saying such things because imagine this, if the staff in the american embassy or say the american ambassador himself is rude and annoying and inefficient, can you blame people for not thinking too highly of america?)

And aren't we all imperfect beings? And isn't our imperfection already a form of mitigating circustamces that may explain our lack of faith? Our, if I may say so, inability to see the existence of this higher power? Surely we can be forgiven for that? Surely the intention matters? We are at least advance enough to recognize for example, the difference between pre-meditated murder and un-premeditated murder.

If the higher power is that small minded and petty, how different is he from us mere mortals? Surely the gap that separates us is bigger than that? I'd certainly like to think so. Because isn't the point of believing in a higher power to give a greater meaning to this mortal existence of ours?

That there is a certain depth to this life that we perhaps cannot see, being the lowly beings that we are.

I mean think about it. I read this essay once that someone wrote. Not in quite the same words as the ones I'd be using but the gist of it is: He was asking what if God is just like us? A tad bit lazy. Easily bored (I mean if you're immortal I guess you'd be needing a lot of entertainment to while away all those time). Can be grumpy from time to time. And so he created a world just to...well... see how things go basically. Like a tv. For entertainment. He'd be too lazy to meddle in the humans' affairs but he can certainly be a busybody and observes things. And I suppose there's enough drama in this world to keep anybody occupied. And when one human dies, well it wouldn't matter much because he can just make several more. One is the same as the rest. And when he gets bored of this he can obliterate it and make a different sort of world. Perhaps with only cows in it. You'll never know.

Imagine that.

If this is true, what a bleak bleak world this is. To be made for entertainment. (No offense to entertainers in general but you know, you get my drift).

And so, even though I am very much a natural pessimist, I choose to think that the higher power is better than that. And no priest is going to tell me otherwise.

Grinning Goat at 7/09/2010 04:25:00 PM pontificated

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{buzzz out}

Thursday, July 08, 2010

You don't know?

You don't know who _ _ _ _ _ is?

Maybe that's because you always call him the 'malay boy'

Never mind that he is a senior staff and is very much no longer a boy
Never mind that he has a name

Hah

Grinning Goat at 7/08/2010 11:08:00 AM pontificated

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{buzzz out}