Sunday, December 7, 2008
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back from Os..
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to everyone who thinks this blog is dead...in your face! haha
Sorry everyone I have been really busy even though Os are over. After my Os I had one week break (not exactly..had children's church camp and stuff) then one week to Cebu (which was fantastic!) and one week of sickness after I came back (but feeling much better now) and then Im heree! Was actually thinking that working would be good but then with so many things at hand (christmas performance, fact camp) I really dont know how. Maybe a short term next yr? Perhaps.
Before Cebu, I actally saved a draft of main ideas I wanted to share I thought might be quite interesting. But I doubt I have time for that now. I will blog about them the next entry I promise, but for now I want to handle the more grippling stuff.
Before Cebu, there was this friend (who was also going to Cebu) who told me that he still dont understand why people believe in God. I finally understood the need for what Peter says in 1 Peter 3:15 (Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,). We were walking back to the mrt so I only had time to explain why there MUST be a god (not why the god is our GOD) but even still I think I didnt do it in gentleness and respect. I totally made fun of the Big Bang and the Darwin's Theory of Evolution (which he believed in). But hopefully I think I got my message to him. He asked his brother the same question he asked me, but his brother said that its faith just believe. That is half true, but we need to reason with ourselves about our faith. That was what I exactly did after I came back from Cebu. I will explain more of that later.
Firstly, why there must be a god? Although I think there are many university students who study about this question and many physicists trying to prove this statement wrong or right, I could think of 2 reasons. 1)The creation of the world. The mountains, the trees, the sky, the stars, the million of species of animals who live underwater, land and air, for me it is impossible to believe that all this came from a big coincidence. In developed places like Singapore, we are living in concrete jungle they say, so we hardly get to experience such stuff. But because we were going Cebu (a rural place in Philippines), we would be able to admire all this stuff during mountain climbing, snorkelling, star-gazing, everything. I remembered that when I went Cebu 2 years ago with the school ncc, I was so amazed with the many many species in the ocean when I snorkelled and the 3D globe full of stars at night. It was amazing that God created them all and named them one by one. 2)The creation of the human body. I read somewhere before that to think of the fertilisation of a baby is a miracle by itself. The sperm and the egg dont JUST happen to meet and they dont JUST grow to form a baby. Imagine creating another human being out of nothing. Plus every single cell in our body is amazing. We, being the most advanced to other animals, have far more developed mind, much more complex body, and a spiritually-longing compared to any animal. Thats why I want to continue studying biology in JC. Every organ in our body, every tissue in our body, every cell in our body is amazing by itself. Our body is smart even if we dont know it. You know if you didnt drink enough water or didnt eat food or your body temperature rose, the body is able to restore that to normal? That was in the O level syallbus thats why I know. Hehe. And all of this came out from a small hollow ball of cells. What my friend brought up the Darwin's theory of evolution, but I told him then why arent the apes "evolving" to humans now? Actually I did thought of the answer after we left, its called "Natural Selection" meaning the more resistant to illness, environmental changes and more competitive survive while the others die off in the search of food and water. But imagine again although there are many similarities with us and the apes, there are so many differences too! For one, not all of us have brown hair or huge feet and swing from tree to tree? I can research more about this another time.
So from the 2 reasons, I conclude that there must be someone who is higher than human beings, the most intelligent animals on earth, the person who created us, that explains why there must be a god.
After I came back from Cebu, somehow something made me think about ok so there is a god but how do I know that that god is my God. This question was troubling me for quite some time, distracted me from worshipping on Sunday. I mean, everything we believe is from the Bible, but every religion has their book they believe in. So what my God different from the other gods and eventually make me believe in Him. While comparing my faith with other religion, I suddenly remembered about what Jit and JoP used to say that "Christianity is not a religion". Now even that statement puzzles me as well. What does that mean? Being confused I approached Wei Lie for an answer yesterday. What he thought about that statement is that other people do good things for consciousness or legalism (or karma), but why we do the good things and not the bad things is because (no doubt that we have rules to follow) but we do them out of love for God and to obey God. Ok I thought to myself that seems like a reasonable idea to accept. Then what about the original question? So I decided to call my CG leader Jit. It was not easy man, it being my first time calling him. I didnt want to drag this issue cos tonight I will be totally packed (literally packing my bag after church) and I need to get myself prepared for the camp! So I started out with the same question I asked Wei Lie. He then asked me to list down what does religion means to me. It so happens that I have wrote this down on a piece of paper when I was thinking to myself so I replied like a set of beliefs, a "holy" book, practices yup. But what he said really made me understand the statement. He said that in Christianity there is MORE to this, it is basically have a PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with God, everything else is secondary. Christianity is establishing a personal relationship with God, not the practices, not the Bible if I dare to say, not the set of beliefs (actually it is or else how to know who God is..anyway). After clearing my doubt about that question, I then proceeded to asking him the all-awaited question. It was quite hard as I have been a christian for many years and Im still dealing with the basic stuff. So I asked him the question. I think that stunned him for a moment but then he smoothly told me that firstly we have to understand that there can ONLY be one God. Ok that was quite easy to accept cos every religion I know on top of all the other gods only have one main god. Then he told me about the resurrection of Jesus. Why He must be the One is because He rose up from the dead 3 days later. All the prophets in other religion are real people (there is prove for that) but Jesus is the Only one who is able to rise up from the dead. This shows that our God is the living God and that He is the God of the living and the dead. It did open up my mind when I heard about that. It was really interesting to know that since Jesus is alive, the God whom I love lives. Amen.
That was really comforting to know. Seriously. I thought of researching about christianity and other religion from the Web, but I realised that the stuff on wikipedia was not what I was looking for. That's why I decided to ask Jit.
Ok I got to go now but just to leave you with one question "In times of danger do you preserve your life or at all costs preserve God's law?" I just finished reading this book I borrowed for Cebu called "Europa Europa - A Memoir of WWII" by Solomon Perel and started thinking about this question. Ok I really got to go now. Will update again soon after my church camp. BYE!!
aaron chua thanked jesus at7:29 PM