Tepidus

One of my favorite movies is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Really nice show, very touching, and with an ambiguous conclusion that allows you to have your own ending if you want.

So anyway, in one of the scenes, in a restaurant, Joel realizes he does not find his relationship with Clementine as fun or as exciting as he once had. And as he looks around the restaurant, at the other diners who also appear to have lost the spark in their relationships, he starts to see himself as part of a group he has a certain disdain for.

"Are we like couples you see in the restaurants? Are we the dining dead?"

So today I met PI, and we had a decent talk over breakfast. Some of it was really interesting, and some of it was a little bit painful. And through it, I suddenly started to realize that I was becoming something that I did not hold in very high regard, and that I really did not want to become.

"Am I like those people who have lost their fire? Am I a lukewarm Christian?"

And just after I was taught a major lesson in Christianity by my grandfather, even though he's one of the newest Christians in the family, and he isn't even exactly sentient right now.

Must. Get. Back.

Unicus

While going to work today, I was just reminded of a Bible study session my CG had a couple of weeks ago. It was led by E from my CG, and even though we were using the CCC guide, we did not really follow the questions inside. Which is ok, since sometimes, the questions are repetitive, and sometimes they don't really help.

So anyway, the topic was about the uniqueness of Jesus. So he compared Christianity as a religion against other religions to draw some examples. But the whole purpose of the discussion stuck.

So the question of the day is: How is Jesus unique to you?

Let's think on that a bit now, shall we?

Cheerio

Cogitatio

I am in an odd position, not knowing whether to be angry, or to laugh at the lack of logic.

See, I was just surfing along CNN one day, looking at various interesting things, as well as various not-so-interesting things, when I came across an unusual article on the CNN website. If you haven't read it, you should take a look.

At first, I just sort of scanned it over, and didn't really give it much thought. But after a while, I started thinking a bit (something at least one idiot in the article didn't do), and well, it made me sort of upset/amused.

Now, part of it stems from the fact that I am a Christian. I know I am far from the 'model' Christian, and very often, I haven't been leading the Christ-like life I have been commanded to lead, but I am very much a believer in Christ. And religion can sometimes make me a bit prickly.

But let us start with another part of this issue.

Basically, the American Humanist Association has this ad campaign for Christmas that has a tagline of "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake". And their spokesperson came out with this statement to the press.

"Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of nontheists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

There are two things about this statement that I'll like to point out.

First of, the world is only 33% Christian. And this is including all Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, and all those fringe cults. I'm not sure about you, but usually when about 2/3 of the world don't feel the religious attachment to the holiday, I would think it would be pretty hard to feel lonely.

Second, this sounds like something I would expect to hear from a 5-year-old. I mean, seriously. 'Feel a little alone'?

And then there's the issue of the campaign itself. Are you going to tell me next, that you'll be running a similar campaign for all those other religious holidays? Like Vesak Day (Birthday of Buddha), or Eid-al-Fitri, or Hanukkah, that there shouldn't be religion involved with those holidays as well?

This of course, leads me to my next point.

The holiday is called Christmas for a reason. I don't know about you, but I think if you look close enough, you may just be able to notice the fact that the first six letters of the Christmas spells out CHRIST. It's a RELIGIOUS holiday. You may not believe in a religion, but this holiday is there because it is RELIGIOUS. You want to take away God from this picture, there's now no more reason to celebrate Christmas, is there?

And he has the gall to say they did this for the following objective.

"...we are trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds."

Right.. great move, Sherlock. You managed to accomplish that alright. I'm now thinking critically of you, questioning if you have the concept of rational thought in your mind.

And I'm not even saying anything about the logical fallacy of morality without God (which you can read in the article), or on what the true meaning of Christmas is.

I don't have anything against atheists. Several of my good friends are atheists, and I know I would have willingly fought and died alongside those I met in army. But this guy is just ridiculous.

There are some things I will never be able to comprehend. Like what contains the universe. Or how long is eternity. And the sheer absurdity of the comments made by this guy.

Cheerio

つ．か．れ．た．

Today was a rather... off day, to put it mildly. And it also puts a pun on the word. Whoopee.

It was supposed to be an off day, but duty called, and I had to go and do some work at the Barclays' Singapore Open. Not that I had to meet anyone, or had any appointments, but I was looking forward to chilling out for a bit.

So I reached office first, and made a call to some guy that I was supposed to call today, however, things didn't work out, so I didn't really get to talk to him. So scratch one objective for the work day.

Then I went down to Serapong to try and get another guy I was supposed to talk to. While there, I was assigned some more work to do, and then the guy I was supposed to talk to was unable to help me find what I wanted today, so we agreed that I would come back tomorrow.

And then, I went back to office, to return a pass I borrowed. Where I was assigned to write a story on something that I had covered awhile back that I thought was to be put on hold for a while longer.

While I'm not complaining about all the work I got, it is starting to get a bit heavier. And coupled with the fact that I can't write articles very fast, plus these articles all are coming out sort of at the same time, and that I did not manage to accomplish anything that I had sacrificed my off day for, can make it somewhat depressing.

The sort of depressing that makes you wish there's a girl who would ask you "how you doing?" and listen to how your day's been, just so that you can get it out. Unfortunately, there's no girl who will ask me how I'm doing, so I have to use the blog.

Oh, and I fell down today. At the golf course, along the road or something. Bother the rain. I was walking along the road, when this golf buggy was coming along. So I (cleverly) stepped onto the green curb and took a few more steps. Then I slipped. Not like major injury or anything, but I skinned the skin on the second finger joint of my third finger of my right hand. I dislike injuries on joints, cos it's bothersome. And my left wrist feels stiff. Gah. Moral of the story: Don't walk on the green curb after it rains.

But on the train ride back home, I was thinking of some stuff that I had to do over the weekend, and I was reminded of what I wanted to use. Which is to continue giving praise to God, even if you're not exactly happy.

"I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips." -Psalm 34:1

Naturally of course, verse 2 makes me feel a bit better, since I feel afflicted. And also the fact that the Bucks beat the Spurs. But that's another story.

And if you do look hard enough, you can always find the good side of whatever happens to you. In fact, you don't really have to look hard. It's just a choice. And that can make it easier for you to praise God, whatever your day is like.

Even if it's as draining as this.

Cheerio.