Yo. Yes, I know it's actually Monday. But I haven't slept yet, and therefore have not unofficially ended Sunday night yet. So much for the earlier post in the week. The next week is a recess week for NUS students though (essentially 1 week of holidays!), and also provides a perfect opportunity to get a mid-week post up.

The recess week is sort of given for people to take a break after (or before) mid-term tests. Which we don't have. Win? We do have some later on though, it's just that we haven't done enough for them to properly test us lol. We're currently onto anatomy, and started with the upper limb, and everything that makes it up. Sort of a weird way to teach it imho, but we shall see. So far it's just been going from bad to worse. Started off with bones, which was Ok. English is cool. Then came muscles. Ok, now it's in Latin. By the time they got down to nerves, I think anatomists just gave up using language anymore. Now it's in numbers. But that's enough about school.

I went along on Monday to my church leader's meeting (not sure why actually, someone asked someone to ask me to or something along those lines). It wasn't bad, learned quite a bit actually. Anyone in Singapore remember anything about that exorcism case that's been pretty big in the past year? Well simply put, a woman is suing a catholic church (two priests and several members?) for attempting an exorcism on her without proper consent/reason, and carrying on against her will. The church has a defense, but I won't list out all the details of the case, which can no doubt be found online. The intriguing part is that the senior managing lawyer hired by my church (City Harvest Church, and the biggest one in Singapore), is the one of the litigation lawyers for the defense. He spoke to the church leadership, primarily for the purpose of educating the general community I suppose on the current situation. The case results will probably be released next year, and the forum will be happening sometime at the end of the month. Won't pass any personal judgment on the case, I don't know enough about the current details... But it really raised some issues on things like deliverance ministries in churches and where they go from here. How can things like these be incorporated into the law, while requiring the case to maintain the level of integrity of things like evidence when ethereal realms are involved?

Something that struck me the other day: despite how mystifying esoteric girls can get, they are in fact essential; indispensable, in fact, when it comes to organising/planning/getting things done. I also have a further, more controversial possibility to suggest: they maintain the social standard among fellow human beings, simply by existing. In their absence (disregarding reproduction as a factor), do you even want to imagine the possibilities in resulting states of the world? Allow me to suggest an analogy: Think the Army. A perfect example created by society itself, for analysis to this end. A predominantly male controlled, male run society functioning independently (for the most part) from the rest of the world. All I ask is that a quick contrast be made between the two. The Army probably showcases some of the lowest forms of social standards of human interaction in reasonably developed environments today, and I dare any guy (with military experience) with a decent sense of the world's current standards of society to disagree. The first signs are a loss of order. What did they do? Run a draconian power system to prevent the otherwise inevitable descent into chaos. In this meagre attempt to reestablish the balance inevitably upset in such a facet of society, not only are many more imbalances created, but as we all know, suppression of the human spirit only goes so far. There's always a limit. Did order result though? If you believe so, I urge you to rethink that. In this sense, one has to actually have experienced the systems run in a military setting first hand. The point is this: While a neat and organised framework is always set up, why does it still fail? What differentiates the structure of this organisation (especially in a country like Singapore, whos conscript army lies dormant), from any corporate one? Virtually? Nothing. Except maybe the relative drastic absence of the representation of the opposite sex. Complacence and laziness are present everywhere, but it's the loss of a part of the notion of humanity itself in within the ranks/core of the system that, in my opinion, is the reason. Which leads us right back to the point: - which you should be able to figure out yourself if you survived this evil chunk of text designed to repel all but the most resilient. (Do take note, this post was preconcieved, and written by a guy, from a guy's point of view (mine).For any one-sidedness apparent (especially to the ladies), I do beg pardon.)

At church earlier on Sunday, something rather disturbing happened. One thing that I've found quite hard to deal with is the style of the church and it's members when it comes to evangelism and leading people to Christ. They're just a little bit too... Forceful, for my taste. It was mentioned that there are problems with church growth related not to a lack of visitors, but possibly a lack of follow-ups. People just lose interest. Perfectly ordinary human tendency. Today I discovered what might be a root problem in this respect. For some reason, members are all too eager in pushing "redemption", which in fact isn't really at the end of the day. I believe that when an individual chooses to recieve Christ, and the Holy Spirit into their lives, it should be a conscious, informed, and voluntary decision. Anything less would nullify the impact of the decision, muddy the edges and corrupt the clarity and sureness in what they've done. Today, I saw a close acquaintance of mine figuratively "forced" (I use the term loosely) to go up with the rest of those deciding to accept Christ into their lives that day. I say "forced" because it wasn't really, but rather, careful manipulation was used (as Singaporeans are notorious in my mind for (and makes me want to spit at those employing such despicable ploys in utter disgust)) to place her in an awkward, and what could be interpreted as a politically incorrect position should she refuse. Which was how she interpreted it. After her initial two refusals, I saw her sullenly rise and follow the shameless zealot up to the front to say the Sinner's Prayer. Blasphemous though this may sound, I hope she didn't, and knowingly purposely didn't do so. It was not only her first time in church, but seriously, I don't even believe in a Christian inviting a non-Christian up front to say the prayer, (a practice seen all too much here), except in exceptional circumstances.

Put yourself into the poor visitor you're dragging up to the stage for an instant. Let's say you're a freethinker/member of another religion, checking out your friend's church/temple/place of worship for whatever religion when invited to come along. Then the person running the meeting gives an opportunity for everyone present to essentially convert to that religion, by taking a spiritually significant step in your life, though you're obviously not very sure, and quite pensive at this point, the only certain thing is that some people will be making a pretty big decision based on this religion soon. Next thing you know, and your friend(s) suddenly has this light in their eyes, and are fervently persuading you to go up and make this significant decision. And the persuasion comes subliminally, with body language, with words (i'll get back to this), from peer pressure, other environmental factors, etc. Your refusal is met with further persuasion, with magnified intensity, and time is running short. What would you do? I know what my reaction would have been (varies slightly based on what my initial religion is assumed to be). I'd tell the person straight out to fsck off (or perhaps use politer forms of the expression, depending on various factors), and at the very least shut myself off to all lower levels of communication, willing myself to only notice the superficial (one way to demolish the manipulative nature of some of the scornful tricks and traps employed much in Asian cultures - they usually aren't bold enough to meet you on the superficial level), and at most walk straight out of the meeting.

The reason! Why is persuasion wrong? What if you manage to explain somehow in that short peroid the sigficance of redemption, and the reason why people would do this, and what it means to do it? It's because of this: Compared to religions, Christianity seems incredibly easy to get into on the surface. You say a prayer. Done. Yay, now you're a Christian and will be going to heaven. Gl and hf for the rest of your life. (Not really, but that's for another time). The thing is, due to the unclear level of depth and significance (as compared to signing a contract in blood or something dramatic like that), it's so easy for people to fall into the trap of falling into the vague void in between. Which is exactly what I feel is happening to at least 90% of people saved in a church that does the whole "encouraging" practice. At the end, questions arise: What? That's it? I'm a Christian now? Am I really a child of God now and going to heaven just for saying a few magic words? Do I have to believe what I just said? Does it matter that I don't know/don't care what happens after this? Does it matter that I didn't really want to do this? Am I locked into something now? What have I done? The list goes on. Oh, the church does it's best to remedy this, resources and the like are afforded to new converts where possible... To me, it's just a little bit late. Thus, when someone refuses to comply when obliged to make a decision like that, there's obviously some reason behind their hesitance. Now if they are "forced" in this state to make the decision, it gets all murky. Once again, my views.

At this point of the post, I looked back to what I've written so far, took a look at the time, and then noticed the difference in the colour of the sky outside my window. Ok not quite, a bit of dramatism, but really, it's not long from then. Not long at all. Quick wrap up from here on out.

I really plan to clean up my room this next week, hope that gets done somehow ><... It's filthy at the moment, and not conducive to living in general at all. Sigh. This is what happens when mum isn't there to nag you. Starting to see some small possibility in the use of that. I also hope to get a guitar during this week! I'm quite out of touch with music in general, what with not having seen my piano for almost a year now, and missing the feel of making music. Especially when I see people do it more. And even more especially when I know I used to be able to. We shall see how much I get done.

Good morning.