It is possible to feel poor without actually being poor. The feeling is just a mindset that is not really consistent with reality, and also kind of dependent on your definition of what being poor means.
Rachel Hill wrote of this mindset - where "complaining about money (or our lack thereof) has become a national sport" in Australia, even though salaries and standards of living has soared. People can catch a cab home when they don't want to bear with the conditions of the train, even though they feel poor. Masters degree, recent overseas trip, etc. makes one feel poor, but that one has been able to take on these things means that one is not as poor as what one thinks.
She says it is not just the notion of self-pity. It is also living up to the way one thinks that the society expects. "Dishing out $60 for a dinner with friends, $200 for a buck's weekend
away, $50 for a baby shower, and $25 for a Kickstarter campaign isn't
just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses – it's a matter of not
offending them."
There are those who are genuinely poor - who cannot afford to turn on the heater during the winter. There are also those who have money in the bank, but are living beyond what they are currently receiving. And there are those who feel poor even though they are not.
Which group do you belong to? What is your definition of "poor"? Are you keeping up to your expectation or that of society?
How about God's expectations?
Are your needs met? Are you able to help others as well?
What should you do with your extra resources? Help someone in need? Locally or overseas? Save it up for a rainy day or for your retirement?
What do you think?
12 May 2013
04 May 2013
Same sex marriages
Do same sex marriages improve a society or deteriorate it? What do you think? Why?
Bradley Miller seems to think it is bad for society. From his examination of its effects in Canada, he reckons that the practice deteriorates people's rights to free speech, as one is limited in one's ability to speak against a practice that has been passed into law. He thinks that education deteriorates as well, as one cannot explain the male-female relationships and sexual intercourses that is "normal" among many species as liberally for fear of offending those who are pro-same sex-relationships. While religious institutions are not forced to perform marriages against their beliefs, they are denied the right to with-hold the use of their premises for people who want to be married.
However, there are those who do not share his view. Australian Marriage Equality has 12 points why "marriage equality" should be allowed. They did not expand on these 12 points - perhaps because they think that the points are obvious and need no further explanation; or perhaps because the points sound good when put forward in this way, but holds no strong basis when examined more carefully. I do not know.
A Kastanis et al and Yahoo! Finance say that gay marriages are good for the economy because of the monetary benefits that come in from people who would spend on weddings, marriages, adoptions, taxes, etc. Perhaps they are right, but should society be driven because of the economic reason alone?
How do we balance this view against what Miller wrote? Does it mean that same sex marriages are good for money, but not good for ethics and liberty?
I read about John Paulk as I was pondering these thoughts. Apparently, this guy used to be a cross-dresser and a drug user. Then he met and decided to follow Jesus. He left the gay community, married a former lesbian, and in their marriage relationship, came to have three sons. Then he left all that to return to the gay community.
Andrew Commiskey, who wrote about John, thinks is not so much about a person's struggle with his own sexual identity. He thinks that a lot of this change has to do with how one feels loved and accepted by others. It has to do with "getting attention, flirting, being made to feel special, distracting oneself from one’s chronic dissatisfaction with life through parties and other high-animation activities", according to Andrew.
If this is true, then it is not really a "gay-gene" that makes people homosexual, but really, ones perception, or misperception, of what is love and how one feels about it. One is after the right to choose to be loved by people who seem to give love, rather than being really wanting to be homosexual. If this is really the case, then society has really gone wrong in the aspect of leaving a person to feel unloved ... and society then walks down the path to see more deterioration through this gay-marriage debate.
This is what I surmise from all this reading anyway. What do you think? Do you have a different conclusion?
Is God real in all this? What is right or wrong in God's eyes? What do you think? What does God say?
Bradley Miller seems to think it is bad for society. From his examination of its effects in Canada, he reckons that the practice deteriorates people's rights to free speech, as one is limited in one's ability to speak against a practice that has been passed into law. He thinks that education deteriorates as well, as one cannot explain the male-female relationships and sexual intercourses that is "normal" among many species as liberally for fear of offending those who are pro-same sex-relationships. While religious institutions are not forced to perform marriages against their beliefs, they are denied the right to with-hold the use of their premises for people who want to be married.
However, there are those who do not share his view. Australian Marriage Equality has 12 points why "marriage equality" should be allowed. They did not expand on these 12 points - perhaps because they think that the points are obvious and need no further explanation; or perhaps because the points sound good when put forward in this way, but holds no strong basis when examined more carefully. I do not know.
A Kastanis et al and Yahoo! Finance say that gay marriages are good for the economy because of the monetary benefits that come in from people who would spend on weddings, marriages, adoptions, taxes, etc. Perhaps they are right, but should society be driven because of the economic reason alone?
How do we balance this view against what Miller wrote? Does it mean that same sex marriages are good for money, but not good for ethics and liberty?
I read about John Paulk as I was pondering these thoughts. Apparently, this guy used to be a cross-dresser and a drug user. Then he met and decided to follow Jesus. He left the gay community, married a former lesbian, and in their marriage relationship, came to have three sons. Then he left all that to return to the gay community.
Andrew Commiskey, who wrote about John, thinks is not so much about a person's struggle with his own sexual identity. He thinks that a lot of this change has to do with how one feels loved and accepted by others. It has to do with "getting attention, flirting, being made to feel special, distracting oneself from one’s chronic dissatisfaction with life through parties and other high-animation activities", according to Andrew.
If this is true, then it is not really a "gay-gene" that makes people homosexual, but really, ones perception, or misperception, of what is love and how one feels about it. One is after the right to choose to be loved by people who seem to give love, rather than being really wanting to be homosexual. If this is really the case, then society has really gone wrong in the aspect of leaving a person to feel unloved ... and society then walks down the path to see more deterioration through this gay-marriage debate.
This is what I surmise from all this reading anyway. What do you think? Do you have a different conclusion?
Is God real in all this? What is right or wrong in God's eyes? What do you think? What does God say?
28 April 2013
The future of public services
What will happen to public services in years to come? Will we still enjoy the "free" facilities that our taxes pay for? Or will everything be so commercialised and "user-pays" that there becomes nothing to enjoy in the future?
Gone are the days when University courses were free. In fact, tertiary education is big, international business nowadays. In fact, there is talk that University fees will go up in price in order to fund education for primary and secondary school children.
Public libraries are something that I have enjoyed, but apparently, the facilities are not there in every country I have lived in. Now, in this age of e-books and broadband internet being available almost everywhere, will public libraries still be useful in the future? I appreciate that libraries are useful for more purposes than just the books, but the people who run and fund these facilities may not.
I heard the other day the proposal that people be charged for using the parks; ie. if they take a dog for a walk or go for a jog or something. I heard that the city councils have rejected the idea, but do you think it might happen someday in the future?
Parking is still free at some times in some places, but no longer in the streets of the big cities anymore, it seems. Then, as the statistics say that more people are using these streets, there has been talk of reducing the free parking faciltiies. Even shopping complexes do not all have 3-hour free parking nowadays.
As the trend changes, what other facilities do you think might disappear? Will you miss these facilties?
What if you have to pay the police if you use their services? Would that mean that criminals can pay the police so that they don't get caught? Would the same principle apply to judges and law courts?
As it is, the fire services are asking for money from the insurance companies and the property taxes in order to pay for their services.
What do you think might change? Do you like the prospect of such user-pay services?
Gone are the days when University courses were free. In fact, tertiary education is big, international business nowadays. In fact, there is talk that University fees will go up in price in order to fund education for primary and secondary school children.
Public libraries are something that I have enjoyed, but apparently, the facilities are not there in every country I have lived in. Now, in this age of e-books and broadband internet being available almost everywhere, will public libraries still be useful in the future? I appreciate that libraries are useful for more purposes than just the books, but the people who run and fund these facilities may not.
I heard the other day the proposal that people be charged for using the parks; ie. if they take a dog for a walk or go for a jog or something. I heard that the city councils have rejected the idea, but do you think it might happen someday in the future?
Parking is still free at some times in some places, but no longer in the streets of the big cities anymore, it seems. Then, as the statistics say that more people are using these streets, there has been talk of reducing the free parking faciltiies. Even shopping complexes do not all have 3-hour free parking nowadays.
As the trend changes, what other facilities do you think might disappear? Will you miss these facilties?
What if you have to pay the police if you use their services? Would that mean that criminals can pay the police so that they don't get caught? Would the same principle apply to judges and law courts?
As it is, the fire services are asking for money from the insurance companies and the property taxes in order to pay for their services.
What do you think might change? Do you like the prospect of such user-pay services?
25 April 2013
Singing at church
Do you go to church? Do you sing with the others there? Or do you find that culture too strange? The songs to unusual? The practice of singing with the congregation too awkward?
I stumbled across David Murrow's blog post on this subject a few days ago. I found it quite thought provoking.
Apparently, church used to be such that professionals would sing in a foreign language (Latin), and the congregation didn't. Then the Reformation happened. People began to read the Bible for themselves, and there became a movement to express their worship themselves also. Hymns were written. When printing became popular, the hymn books were published and circulated and everybody was able to sing together. Such became the culture of the church.
Then came the days of the projectors. Song books became less used, as people projected the words on screen. At first, the projected words were the songs that were in the hymn books and other song books. But, as people came out to write and sing newer songs, these were no longer circulated in the song books at churches. Then song leaders would get excited to introduce newer songs so often that the congregations do not sing the new songs often enough and do not learn them well enough to join in.
So we are back to the pre-Reformation age where the song-leaders sing, and the congregation doesn't.
Do you find this phenomenon at your church?
What do you think about it?
Why should/shouldn't we sing at churches? What is the singing all about?
Are we at an age of information overload? I mean, while there were too few songs, it was boring. While there are too many, it becomes impossible to learn. Have we passed the ideal stage of having roughly the right number to not be boring, but yet able to learn?
What do you think?
I stumbled across David Murrow's blog post on this subject a few days ago. I found it quite thought provoking.
Apparently, church used to be such that professionals would sing in a foreign language (Latin), and the congregation didn't. Then the Reformation happened. People began to read the Bible for themselves, and there became a movement to express their worship themselves also. Hymns were written. When printing became popular, the hymn books were published and circulated and everybody was able to sing together. Such became the culture of the church.
Then came the days of the projectors. Song books became less used, as people projected the words on screen. At first, the projected words were the songs that were in the hymn books and other song books. But, as people came out to write and sing newer songs, these were no longer circulated in the song books at churches. Then song leaders would get excited to introduce newer songs so often that the congregations do not sing the new songs often enough and do not learn them well enough to join in.
So we are back to the pre-Reformation age where the song-leaders sing, and the congregation doesn't.
Do you find this phenomenon at your church?
What do you think about it?
Why should/shouldn't we sing at churches? What is the singing all about?
Are we at an age of information overload? I mean, while there were too few songs, it was boring. While there are too many, it becomes impossible to learn. Have we passed the ideal stage of having roughly the right number to not be boring, but yet able to learn?
What do you think?
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