26 January 2013

Trust

There are people out there who would deceive you to take some of your money.  I encountered a couple of these.
  • One came to church and told a sad story of financial hardship.  He asked for money to tide him over for a couple of weeks, promising to return the money later.  We did not see him again.
  • Another asked for directions to the airport.  Then happy to receive help, he gave a gift.  After that, he told a story of how he got cheated, and needed money to change his air-ticket so that he could go home to Italy.  His modus operandus was similar to http://www.scamnet.wa.gov.au/scamnet/Types_Of_Scams-Itinerant_traders-Leather_Jacket_Scam.htm except that he did not sell, but played for compassion instead.
 What is one supposed to do when shady people like these exist?
  • One can be cautious and not trusting, so not to be taken in by these scams, but consequently not helping these people if their stories end up being true.  Or,
  • One could help, and feel conned, when one releases money for a purpose other than what is intended.
What would Jesus do?  What did Jesus do when people went to Him for help?

Likewise, as we live our lives daily, we naturally need to trust some people around us - even strangers - as we go about our lives.
  •  That the food we buy from strangers is safe to eat.
  • That our employers will pay us (they were strangers when we started working for them)
  • That our Universities will teach us and make us qualified according to the courses they offer
  • etc
Is it possible to be cheated in any of these situations?  Yet we know we need to trust in order to move on.

So, how can we tell who we can trust in the world today?  Are our politicians and governments honest people?  Are we any better than the people who try to con us?  Who can we trust?  How much?  Why?

21 January 2013

Cheating

"Cheating is typical", said Dan Ariely in an interview with New Scientist.  He reckons that "we are all prone to dishonesty" when the circumstances are right.  How prone we are depends on our morality, and our culture, to some extent, but if the circumstances favour cheating and if we think we are doing the right thing by cheating, then we will cheat.

In an experiment, he found that when people are told that they can shred their answers and then tell how many they were able to attempt in five minutes, most people would claim that they have done six when they actually only did four.  Not many would exaggerate to say ten or twenty, as people to have some sense of self esteem.

Ariely reckons that many cheat in the world of banking, where the stakes are high and the rules are not clear.  They rationalise that this is what they are paid to do; it is not really cheating when their colleagues and counterparts and competitors are doing it; it is not cheating when they are doing what is expected of them.  Ariely seems to advocate the view that we have the tendency to do what we think to be rationally appropriate, even when it may not be morally correct.

What do you think?  Do you cheat?  Does everyone cheat?  Is cheating rational?

Something else in my recent reading was about the "Piltdown man", who turned out to be a hoax.

It had long been anticipated that there would be a "missing link", a hybrid species between ape and man, if man had truly evolved from apes.  A discovery in the early 20th century suggested that perhaps archaeologists had found this link.  The Piltdown man was derived from a finding of skull and jawbone fragments - the skull was that of a man, the jaw was that of an ape, and there was a tooth of an elephant in the puzzle as well.

It was later discovered that the age of these bones were not consistent with each other.  The finding was a fraud.

Who conscripted this fraud?  Why?  Was it to deceive the world?  Was any money involved?  Scientific credibility or prestige?  The world did not gain from being duped, although the devil may have led some astray because of this lie.

Is the Piltdown man part of the cheating psychology that Ariely talks about?  Why do we deceive others, and ourselves?  What do you think?

14 January 2013

What is gambling?

What do you think of when you hear the word "gamble"?  What do you think it really means?

My daughter asked me this question.  I had some difficulty answering her.

The first ideas that came to my mind were things like casinos, horse-races and lotteries.  Things that carry an element of risk.  A situation where one stands to lose if one does not win.  Do similar thoughts cross your mind when you think about this word?

Then how do you distinguish gambling from sports?  Business?  Saving people's lives in the case of bushfires?  These situations also carry risk, where one stands to lose if one does not win.

Furthermore is the concept of ethics; ie. where one associates gambling with an element of immorality.  Where would one draw the line between moral risks and immoral ones?  Why?  Should gambling be thought of as immoral?

The Cambridge Dictionary's definition of the word "gamble" is consistent with what I wrote above.  But it does not draw the line between what is moral and what isn't.

Then there is the issue of lucky dips, school competitions, charity sweepstakes and raffle tickets.  Is it to be considered gambling if one donates to charity when one loses?

What do you think?  How would you explain the ethics to a school girl?  What is acceptable before God?  Is the society's attitude to gambling consistent with what God expects of us?

07 January 2013

What is right about Christians today?

What does it mean to be a Christian today?  Is this belief/practice/behaviour correct for today's society?

A few thoughts came to mind as I tried to answer these questions:
  • This article in TownHall.com carries some good points, but it is very USA-centric.  Many Christians in other parts of the world may share some commonalities with USA's Christians, but there will also be some differences.  I think that many of the points in the "weaknesses" list should serve as a wake-up call to many Christians around the world.
  • What happened to the old days when Christians would give out tracts on buses or at street corners?  Have we found this strategy too unattractive?  Too confronting?  Are we not clear enough about what we believe that we are now afraid that we may not have the answers if people were to ask?  This would be to the shame of the church.  In recent times, I have found Muslims doing this kind of street evangelism instead of the Christians, as was the case previously.  Some were wearing these T-shirts which state that "I have found the Prophet Jesus in the Quran" on one side, and "I have found the Prophet Mohammad in the Bible" on the other side.  Theologically, both these assertions are not exactly true, but many people probably do not know their Bible well enough to answer these guys
  • A recent study in Daniel 4 & 5 reminded me that many of us from the Western cultures have been influenced by this paradigm that everybody has the right to our own opinion.  That we can choose our course ahead.  That we have the power in ourselves to do whatever we want.  We forget that God gave us everything we have, and we owe Him our thanks and worship.  We forget that bad choices result in bad consequences.  We do not have ultimate control.  We find it hard to talk about Jesus being the only way, or how much we need God to the people around us, lest they consider us as freaks.  However, we end up not giving God the glory unless we do this.  God's judgement on us, and the people around us is imminent.
What do you think?  What does it mean to be a Christian today?  Can Christians influence the culture of the people around them the way they used to?  Will today's Christians be willing to die for what they believe, the way yesterday's Christians did?

02 January 2013

What is a Muslim?

A couple of women, dressed in modern clothing with sparkling beads were spotted during the New Years Eve party.  They wore head coverings the way many Muslim women do.  They also wore mini-skirts, which many Muslim women do not do.  Under the mini-skirts were tights, so they certainly were not showing a lot of skin.

Were they Muslim women?  Or were they not?  Is the stereotype that Muslim women wear head coverings correct?  Don't other women wear head coverings too?

We live in such a multicultural society that it is easy to box people up in the way we wish to perceive them, but the way we classify people may not be entirely correct.  There will be exceptions to the rule.

A friend told me the other day that "all generalisations are incorrect, including this one".

This reminds me of another article I read recently.  It said that "no particular Islamic institution - legal, philosophical, or mystical - has an exclusive prerogative deciding who a Muslim is. It is Muslims themselves, in the plurality of their class, gender, and racialised identities - who are now (as they have always been) on a vastly variegated and open-ended highway making that decision for themselves".

Dabashi, the author, sees that Islam is not the religion in history that it once was.  Now that many adherents live in a modern, "post-Western" world, many are understanding their beliefs in ways that are somewhat different from what others in the Eastern world would have thought a few generations ago.  So besides thinking of Islam as fundamentalists, Sunni, Shia, Imam, men, women, etc; we also get to meet the modern and post-modern ones; at least in some societies.

What do you think?  Are all Muslims the same in the way you perceive them?  Is it anything like the "denominations" that are used to classify different Christian groups?  How would you define what a Muslim is from your point of view?