Be like Muslims

Bill Cosby was quoted to have said:

I am a Christian. But Muslims are misunderstood. Intentionally misunderstood. We should all be more like them. They make sense, especially with their children. There is no other group like Muslims, who put so much effort into teaching children the right things:

* They don't smoke
* They don't drink alcohol
* They protect their women
* They command respect

What do you think of this statement?  Would you agree with him?

Is Cosby an expert in such matters for this statement to be taken as a fact?

Why do you think Muslims are "intentionally misunderstood"?  Or are they just misunderstood, howbeit unintentionally?  Or perhaps understood correctly?

Is this a plot to draw people to consider converting to Islam?

Do you think Muslims behave well?  Do they really not smoke, not drink alcohol, protect their women and command respect as what Cosby said?  Are these really virtues?  Do they teach their children these things?

Do these characteristics represent all Muslims? Or just some of them?  Do non-Muslims uphold such values also?

I am not saying that Cosby is wrong.  I am just surprised to see  that a web page puts such emphasis on what he said.  I am not sure if Muslims are really misunderstood or that Cosby's description is right.  I think that Christians should respect Muslims, and vice-versa ... but we should believe and serve the One True God and not be taken in by words of respect that may turn out to be deceptive.

What do you think?

Read the Bible seriously

Some friends and I read Psalm 19:7-14 together tonight.

As we came to understand the passage together, the following points seemed relevant to us:

• We should take God's word seriously.  Think it through.  Understand it.  Don't question it as something to be trifled with or for making jokes out of, but to understand it as coming from somebody with power and authority.
• Sometimes, we do not know what is right and true, unless another points it out to us.  God's point of view is even more relevant than that of another person.
• We do not like to be corrected, but we will appreciate it when we see that it is beneficial.
• We may dread correction at first, but when can come to love it when we see how it changes us for good.
• We need to be kept from willful sin.  The way this works is through constantly seeing things God's way, and choosing His way instead of our own.

How unlike commercials and the way society works!  We would rather think of ourselves as right, and do things our own way!

But what do you think?  Is there any other book that guides us towards God's way other than the Bible?  Do other scriptures work also?  Is God's way really relevant?  Isn't our own way good enough?

What if we misunderstand God's way, and come up with many interpretations of it?

How do we get it right?  What benefit is it to get it right?  Is there really any right and wrong?

What do you believe?  Why?

Blood moon

The world is getting excited again, as the sighting of the blood moon coincides with the Jewish Passover.

It reminds people of these prophecies from the Bible:

• I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Joel 2:30-31, NIV)

• The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. (Acts 2:20, NIV)

• I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, (Revelation 6:12, NIV)

Blood moons are set to happen at both Passover and Sukot in 2014 and 2015.  Is there a significance to this?

Some people seem to think so.

Stakelbeck cites history, where:

1492: Spain expelled the Jews, Columbus discovers America which became a safe haven for the Jews.
1948: Israel reborn as a nation.
1967: Israel won the 6-day war.

all happened during the time when blood moons were seen.

Perhaps this season's blood moons has something to do with Israel, Syria and Egypt?

Perhaps the coincidence of blood moons with Jewish festive calendars is not so special.  Since the calendars are based on the lunar cycles, and since blood moons are the effect of eclipses of the Earth over the Moon, perhaps it is only natural that the coincidences happen when they happen, as Faulkner analyses.

What do you think?  Is there any significance to blood moons?  Are they just astronomical phenomenons that bear no relevance? Or does God, who uses Sun, moon and stars for signs, tell us something through them?

Do they, at the very least, signify something about Bible prophesy to you?

Two laws

What if the nation where you lived in carried two laws?

One law applies to the people regarded as the elite group.  These people are separated based on either their gender, race, religion, royalty or something else.  There is a code of conduct that is expected of them, but they have privileges that allow them to conduct themselves differently from everybody else.

The other law applies to everybody else.  Everybody must abide by this law or else be punished, unless they are a part of the "elite" group.

The elite group may not be criticised or corrected by anybody else, other than other members of the elite group.  Otherwise, the offender would be accused of insolence.

Do you think this is fair?  Do you think this is tolerable?

I think that maybe, if the differences between the two are few and minor, then perhaps I could live with that.  Eg. British royalty.  But I am not sure I can, if the rules were greatly different or if they were oppressive.  That is why I am bothered as I read of Egypt.  I understand that some people live in such circumstances, and I wish life were easier in those places.

Eg. the understanding that Muslims have more rights than non-Muslims, that men have more rights than women, and that owners have more rights than slaves imply that Christian girls may be kidnapped, sold as slaves, forced to marry, raped and forced to convert.  I don't think that is fair.  Do you?  I think laws should force people to be kinder than this.

Applying this "twin-headed cultural hydra" in another way, a Christian teacher was shot last week, for reprimanding a Muslim student who was smoking.  If smoking is against the school rules, than the Christian teacher was acting within his area of responsibility and his rights.  But his was taken as insolence, since he should have been submissive and not think he has the power to correct a Muslim.

What if the laws changed such that we can't correct our own children because of the rights given to them?  Would not the country go crazy?

I understand that the Hindu caste had such a system in the old days.  I understand that such culture exists in many parts of the world.  I just wonder, coming from my culture - how I would live if God sent me to such places.

In your opinion, are such systems fair?  Just?  Right?  Can we accept culture in whatever form it comes in, and treat every culture as okay and tolerable?  Or do some need to change?  What do you think?

Travel while it is worth it

Travel before it is too late.  The world is changing.  It will become so uniform one day that it will no longer be a thrill to see another country or culture.

This seems to be the message of Ben Groundwater's article.  He thinks that "as the world changes, it's becoming the same".  His notion is that as people from all over the world have moved to live in other places around the world, there becomes elements of every culture in every culture.  There is Chinese food served in every country I can think of.  There is McDonalds in every major city I have been to, other than Ulaan Bator and Phnom Penh.  (Although, maybe, McDonalds could be in those places now as well.)

Unlike a few centuries ago, where Italy was more uniquely Italian, China was more uniquely Chinese, etc.  If the trend continues, multiculturalism will be everywhere.  Multiculturalism might also collapse to have less variety, and the whole world eventually lives with the same understanding of culture.

Do you think this might be possible?  Would this be a good thing or a bad thing, in your opinion, if it happens?

Can you imagine the world being gay and anti-gay at the same time?  Muslim, monotheistic, and Hindu, polytheistic, at the same time?  Or maybe atheistic instead?  Can India and Pakistan live with each other?

Or will we just blow each other up and the uniform culture is actually no culture at all?

As it is, we have city vs. rural cultures in every country.  I see that what Ben says is more true about cities around the world - they have enough similarities that traveling salesmen and other professionals have the same feel of hotels and airlines and food everywhere they go.  But out in the rural areas, things are less similar.  And out in the "real" world of the cities, things are also quite different.

As many migrate to the cities, things may be more similar in the future too.

As it is, we do not agree on how to use English, but we use English similarly enough to be understood by other English speakers.  How do we incorporate other languages?  And foods?  And dress-codes?  Etc?

Is it like the 3rd law of thermodynamics that says that unless energy from an external source lifts us up, we just plateau to a naturally uniform state?  How long do you think it might it be before the world collapses into a single culture?

What would you miss if the world collapses into the culture that is served to us in aeroplanes and hotels?