Tolerance, relativism, the postmodernism refusal to commit, the cultural triumph of uncertainty – all these rule out a repeat of the pyrotechnics in H3

Finally, I’d finished reading Wittgenstein’s Poker. The book is an introductory discussion on the philosophies of two of the greatest philosophers of the last century; Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein. The authors employed the (in)famous brief confrontation between the both of them at the Cambridge’s Moral Science Club (in room H3, King’s College) as a starting point to discuss some of the philosophical ideas/ideals of the two masters. Reading this book, I was initiated into the romantic world of philosophical circles and societies, their activities, thoughts and, of course, problems (or was it just “puzzles”? as proposed by Wittgenstein). I was reminded of my initial expectation of my own university. I had imagined an Oxbridge environment when I first entered the University of Malaya two years ago. Now nearing my graduation, I’d nearly forgotten that first expectancy. There was no discussion circle, there was no Moral Sc Club, there was no “dead poets society”, there were no major efforts to pursue learning as I had always thought there will be.

Wittgenstein’s Poker had inspired me to begin to do what I had always imagined UM would be like from the beginning. Perhaps I had idled away too much time and this is one endeavour that had been unjustly postponed till so late in my university life. But I guess it is nearly always “never too late” to start a worthy enterprise. And we did it.

Last Tuesday, a group of us from PKV met up ala-Moral Sc Club to discuss concerning the Deity of Jesus Christ. The idea to meet began as a plan for a follow-up to the previous screening of the recording of a debate between a Christian pastor and a Muslim apologist. We thought that it would be appropriate after watching the debate to response to some of the issues that were raised against the Deity of Jesus Christ. The idea of a gathering soon evolved, ambitiously, into a Moral Sc Club/Vienna Circle model. A few fellows were invited to present their “papers” on the theme of the Deity of Jesus Christ, each was given 15 minutes to speak and after each presentation, the session will discuss on the points presented. Here, in honour of our first speakers, I shall list their names and their presentation titles:

1.Yen Nie    & nbsp;   Either Jesus is God or he is godless
2.Ivan S.    & nbsp;   The Sonship of Christ
3.Chris C.    & nbsp;  The Paradoxes In Biblical Theology
4.Giden L    & nbsp;  The Analysis of the Word "Logos"
5.Kok How   &nbs p;  The Divinity of Christ

The event went rather well given that it was the first “experiment”. Substance-wise, everyone who presented that night put in good efforts in preparing their papers. Giden deserved a special mention for his four-paged notes and the Greek language lesson he gave us that night. Although the participation for the discussion was rather low, it was not unexpected. But my plan was not merely to focus on the substance of the presentations or the involvements of the attendees. Important and vital as those elements were, I really felt that the thing to do then was to introduce the experience of learning and interacting within a fellowship of like-minded people. At least to us who were still foreign to the idea of such activity and culture (as that of the Moral Sc Club/Vienna Circle), it is reasonable to firstly bridge that gap of unfamiliarity and to make everyone at least comfortable with it.

Of course we dared not claim much affinity with the Moral Sc Club/Vienna Circle, although we did unofficially and for the want of a proper name called it the PKV Vienna Circle. We are still searching for an identity and a proper model to conduct our gatherings. Some of us have already planned for the next meeting after the Chinese New Year holidays. It will be slightly different from the first one; we will have only two speakers this time and both will be presenting alternative views to one another on the Theme of that meeting. It will be the second experiment.

Perhaps some may begin to think that our attempts will bring more harm than help to the simple Christian faith. I must humbly acknowledge that it might be true, but we are doing this with much fear and trembling. In my introduction to the first meeting, I said these to those present and I repeat:

We are not here merely to exercise our minds, but to exercise our minds in the service of God

And quoting C.S. Lewis;

“To be ignorant and simple now – not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground – would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defence but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen.”

The goal is to develop our renewed mind.

The university is a sacred place for learning, it’s a place where the Oxbridge ideals of pursuing a variety of scholarships is being realized or at least tried out. And I hope that UM will be such a university, beginning here, humbly, in the PKV Vienna Circle (we need to get a name!).

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Karl Popper

In the Popper-Wittgenstein meeting, the latter was alleged to have waved a poker in a threatening manner while the two were in a bitter debate. Some said this was not the case, he was merely using the poker like a “conductor’s baton to emphasize his assertions”. We really didn’t know what had happened there, it is also quite impossible to find out the truth given the many different accounts put forward by eyewitnesses. But the details of the event are not as important anymore, it was the event that is significant to us today. --- In the final pages of the Wittgenstein’s Poker, the authors wrote, The thrust of the poker becomes a symbol of the two men’s unremitting zeal in their search for the right answers to the big questions. May such fervour for pursuing the truth also be found in us all.

[link] The Agora will be holding a meeting to discuss "Relativism":

Time: 2 pm
Date: 30 Jan 2005 (Sunday)
Venue: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church ([link] Map)

For a pre-discussion jab of insulin/cone of ice-cream; check out [link] bohtea's ramblings

My Office

My Library

My Bedroom (hehehe...joking!)

He must be a sadist! Here I am at 0300 hour waiting for my J2SE Development Kit 5.0 Update 1 and NetBeans IDE 4.0 Bundle (phew~) to download from the Sun Developer Network site. There are assignments, in Java, due very soon from now and there is my final year project, in Java, also very very nearing the deadline. To add to the great sorrow of being deprived of precious sleep, I know nuts about Java! Sigh, who invented the Java programming language?!

Oh well, while waiting for my Java to brew...blog lah.

Ah, hours ago I was at the Universiti Malaya Symphony Orchestra recital. The Wind department had presented this concert to raise fund for the 26^th December 04 Tsunami victims. It is already one month since the unfortunate incident. On the last New Year’s Eve, some of us gathered at the Jacksons’ to observe the occasion (new year) and to contemplate the sad event (tsunami). The world seems to be more humane and humanity reconciles at times like this. It’s sad to hear news of death and sufferings, but it’s great to receive reports of people showing genuine charity and loving one another. Humans are humans; the tsunami did not discriminate between religions and race when it revealed its wrath, neither should we when showing our charity. Kudos to humanity for yet again proving that the brotherhood of men is a real thing!

The Hall was filled just now at the concert. I went with a few friends, feeling rather tired but hopeful that the music will somehow make the trip worthwhile. The first songs were great (Abba’s Dancing Queen, Mamma Mia, Fernando, The Winner Takes It All) but sadly the conductor was a disappointment. He was too fake and did not integrate well into the mood of the music. I thought he was doing “Tai Chi” most of the time. But at least he didn’t stoop to doing the “char koay teow” movements. The next songs were jingle-tunes from the cartoons Doraemon and Chibi Maruko Chan, I especially enjoyed the latter for the comedic rendition (reminded me of a Stephen Chow movie where one of the actors sang “pi li pa la pi li pa la” to that tune). After the Japanese cartoon songs, came a pleasant surprise; an ancient Russian Christmas hymn (!) – Carol of the Little Russian Children. I closed my eyes and imagined being transported to the scenes of The Little Match Girl. The music was solemn and constrained with a few climatic points in betweens. It was really a different genre altogether from our usual (western) carols; the bells did not jingle but rang a few solemn calls to the soul to observe Christmas in awe and in peaceful joy. And to think that Dave and I were chatting over at Yahoo Messenger about the Orthodox Church practices earlier yesterday, wow~

Dr. Nasir took over the baton after the carol and he did a great job with the conducting, as usual. But I share Alyster’s (Oh, another pleasant surprise at the concert) opinion on Dr. Nasir's liberal inclination. Too much contextualization and an overdone effort of innovation made the music sounded weird; jazz meets classic meets contemporary meets Malaysiana. I personally think that Alyster was rather harsh with her critique though. To be fair to Dr. Nasir, he did put a smile on most of the audience. That brought me to think about the goal of art, something that I used to contemplate a lot last time. Which is more important: to maintain the quality of the artistic perspective (not esthetic, but artistic, i.e. the artist’s expression of his ideas) or to communicate the art to the masses? Of course both can be achieved at once, but is one sufficed without the other? IMHO, art should ultimately be communicable to the audience. I remember Joshua W. used to joke that Wong Kar Wai’s movies are meaningless quality arts, a waste of money and time to watch, while Wong Jin’s movies are useless junks, but worth the cinema tickets’ price. Hmm…another life’s dilemma, another balance to strike.

Even if I were to agree with Alyster that the rojak music were so-so, I must say that Dr. Nasir’s own compositions – putting music to Datuk Hashim Yaakob’s Malay poems – were great. He was on the piano for three songs (all his own compositions around the verses of Datuk Hashim, the Vice Cancellor) – Tamu Semalam (The Guest Yesternight), Tak Melayu Hilang Di Dunia (Malays Will Not Perish) and the finale, Selamat Beristirehat, Sahabatku (Rest In Peace, My Friend). The second song was barely audible so I didn’t really enjoy it, but the other two were wonderful! Selamat Beristirehat was especially good. It was soulful and melancholic but tinged with an eerie happy reminiscence so familiar in eulogies of “nice persons”. The singer, Rohimi Sobeng, also contributed much to the quality of the song with her beautiful voice and excellent performance. My verdict: Satisfied.

Except perhaps for one part of the show. Our beloved Vice Chancellor and his gang of professors were very sporting to treat us with a performance, all in the name of charity. It could have been a good show except for the fact that the VC, again (!), recited his Merdeka-Jangan Derhaka poem. It was an outright propaganda poem – sigh, I will not go into the details here. Most importantly, it did not suit the occasion. We were talking about tsunami victims, not the Iraq War or America-Iran conflict or Melaka-and-Merdeka. The VC and gang did all those irrelevant sajak (Malay poem) complete with the Malay traditional gears AND A KERIS (Malay traditional weapon)! He even performed a few silat (Malay martial art) stances. Phew~ But my applause to him for being a good sport. Kudos to our CEO!

Gosh, the Java thing is still installing. Arrghh, who invented programming language?!

One day...

I discovered DURIANS! And then...

I found that they are EDIBLE!!

When I was promoted to that Solid Rock,

All other things I could not bring along;

I saw my feeble person upon that Dock,

And beheld that Foundation strong!

O’ what great peace to have such Hope,

To have Jesus to lean upon;

Come on all ye in those feeble boats,

Come up this Rock and abandon thy hope-forlorn.

The sovereignty of God is like a great Ground, so unchangeable and so unshakeable; it is like a sturdy Rock in the midst of the raging sea. Alas, when we embrace the Doctrine of the Sovereignty of God, we will but have to leave behind all those small pebbles and dirt we held previously. We must abandon those petty hopes that once spurred us, in exchange for a surer, nay, the surest Hope. What is man’s freewill? Shall we further rest on that false notion, that Humanist’s lie, that over evaluation of man’s worth? Even if we were allowed to pick between God’s sovereignty and the freedom of man’s will, will we be so self-conceited to choose the latter so that our lust for control and power is satisfied? Are we so deceived as to find comfort in the feebleness of man and refused to allow the Great and Good God to be Sovereign in all things? I echo Spurgeon in proclaiming, “Not the Freedom of Will, but the Freeness of Grace!”

My liberty is to my Master yield,
My joy is, to do His will!

The Doctrine of the Sovereignty of God is not compatible with our proud philosophies. Abandon them! Abandon those forlorn hopes! Abandon those small tiny boats! You cannot face the wild storms and the violent seas with all these pitiful things. Come up to Jesus, the King and the Lord of All.

There art no other ways in this storm,
Ye must Dock or ye must drown.

------------------------- ------------------------- ----------------------

c.f. The Great Divide

O’ praise Him our Father, Whose Grace abound

See how His streams of Mercy flow

He longs this day for the lost sheep be found

And restored to the Shepherd’s fold

O’ praise Him our Lord, Whose Love so great

Supplied His blood our penalty relieved

All ye Sinners just raise thy heads

Just look and live, just look and live!

O’ praise the Holy Ghost, our Advocate,

Verily God, Comforter of our pains

Hear Him today as He bade

“Ye must be born again! Born again!”

O’ praise Him our God, the Holy Triad

Mercy and Grace in Him mingled

He alone is our real Comfort

Our true Rest, our spirits’ pleasure

Dear Brethrens;

There were many struggles in life last year (and all the previous years!) and I doubt this new year would not be the same. Many times we may feel tired and exhausted, we may be down-trodden and felt beaten. The lonely nights when Sin came to haunt us and how we wrestled with It in vain - we will still have those dreaded visitations.  The Guilt that shouts at us all the time accusing and condemning us - Its voice will continue to abuse us in the days ahead. Our imperfection just oozes out from every pores and we felt so ashamed, yea, even afraid, to come before our Holy God. There will be many more tears to shed, many more battles to fight and more wounds to endure in the coming days. Leon lamented that he longed for a rest which no bed can provide. I longed for such rest too.

This is a poem for you people, esp.

Joshua W. (sg), David P., Chris C. & Neighbour, Jeff & Lydia, Giden & Aronil, Bro. Bear, Sarah Lim, Yong Yen Nie, Carmen, Edward L. (s'wak), Alan L. (melaka), Candice (s'bah), Faith Foo,  Joanne T. (red), Kathy T. (russia!), Joanlynn (bm!!);

Leon and Alicia, Dave, Daud, Ambassador & Doris (& kids);

Bro. Ch'ng & Sis. Lim, Bro. Ooi & Sis. Teng, Sis. Kathy, Bro. Oon;

all the saints in BM Church, CDPC, and PKVians;

There is a rest that I miss,

One which no bed can give;

I wondered: Where can I lay my heavy heart tonite?

And God said: Go thither to My Son, there art Rest in Storms despite.

May you find rest in the Lord.

Rev. Stephen Tong greeted the congregation with a New Year sermon yester-night. He greeted us with Psalm 84:1-7. In that spirit, I want to wish you all a Happy New Year too. May you go from strength to strength.

They treaded the Valley, suffered its length Springs gushed out along their path, 'twas the Pilgrims' tears; The sight of the Mount gave them strength, To press on, for they know Zion's near!

Fellow Pilgrims, our Journey continues...