Ends and Means

I was asking myself this question in my class's ethics lesson. Do the ends justify the means?

The question is:

A Captain of a sinking ship is forced to make a decision. IF he threw some people overboard, he would be able to save the rest as the ship would be able to stay afloat and they could steer the ship to safety. If on the other hand, the Captain did not throw people overboard, then everyone would go down with the ship.

The captain decides to throw some people overboard, and he decides to throw the weaker ones as the boat needed people to row. Now those who were not thrown overboard were rescued, but the captain was charged in court.

If you were the jury, how would you rule? Did the captain do the right thing?

I found myself asking should the captain have murdered the few people. But if he did not murder the few, he would have been responsible for killing the many. But if he did kill the few, does the ends justify the means.

Christians would say always do the right thing and let God take care of the rest. I am agreeing with that statement except in this case, there is probably no right or wrong thing to do. Either action or inaction is arguably neither, or both, right. Worse, your decisions affect others.

I think in life, it is very hard to live by a hard and fast rule. Circumstances dictate the rules in so many cases. On the one hand, it is conceivable that the captain HAD committed murder. But if the captain had not, he would have committed negligence, of not doing what he can to save those he could. In such cases, i believe it is best that the captain be set free from all charges, as he did what he felt was best in the situation. Since it is not clearly a right or a wrong action, i would at best say that the captain was not a killer neither was he neglecting his duties. He is innocent, forced by circumstances to make decisions that were bad and worse.

Oh dear

I come to realise something.

I have become so interested in theology, i forgot people. I forget to love people. I forget to ask people. I forget about people.

Theology without people is religion. Theology without love is legalism. Theology without heart is pharisee.

Christianity is about people, about love, about heart. It is about you, me and everything. It must not be apart from the things that make us human, it must be about the very element that makes us human. The love. The emotions. The failings. The relationships. It is about people, love and the heart.

Who is this King of Glory, Son of God and Son of Man

Last night, i had a debate with my friends from VCF. It was about whether God can call you to do something that He knows will fail. That is despite obedience, it will fail.

Today, during my religion class, God spoke. Using a video showing Buddhism. The video was about a parrot who tried to do the right thing. The parrot was in a forest, and a fire broke out. Seeing his fellow friends in trouble, the parrot tried to fight the fire by diving into the nearby lake, flying over the fire and shaking off the excess water to quench the thrist of the fire.

Now that was a hopeless, useless task. There was no way the fire could be defeated by a mere sprinking of the water. However, the Gods (let me say that while i do not believe the story, i do believe it is trying to teach something.) came and mocked the bird. The bird rebvuke the Gods, the Gods, now abashed, cried in repentance and stopped the fire.

Now the issue is this: Sometimes, we see the objective as the achievement of our actions. God said no. He said, It is not what you do, but how I use what you do to achieve the goal. If you obey Me, I will use it to My good.

At the end of the day, i asked the question would God call you to failure. God turned the question around, and said achieving the objective is what He would do. But our actions may or may not achieve that goal.

Abraham was given the promise, the duty even, to have a child of Sarah and himself. He went to sleep with Hager, came up with Ishmael, you now have another race that fights the jewish people. Saul helped in the persecutions of the early church, God called him one day and he became a large contributor of the new testament. Jacob had 12 sons, one of whom became the governor of Egypt, yet not because Joseph ran for public office, (if anything, Joesph ran into Jail), but because he was faithful.

Many times, our actions may not achieve the goals we want, or even think they had a contributing factor to the goal. But God uses the actions. His ways are not our ways.

To give the jews back their homeland, genocide of the jews in WW2 happened. To bring israel out of egypt, all the first borns of Israel were killed; save for Moses who became the Pharoah's son. God's ways are not our ways. We merely obey.

Consistency

My pastor preached that christians are christians everywhere. We should not differ from sunday and the rest.

The truth is, you need to be a christian playing different roles. Whether a christian friend, a christian colleague, a christian teacher, a christian businessman. No one can be merely a christian because we all play different roles at every moment.

Jesus was a christian preacher, full of righteous fury when he threw out people from the temple. Yet he became the tender healer when he touched the repentent and those who were sick. To those who asked questions, he was the wise teacher. To those who loved the law, he was the embodiment of rebuke.

Pauline epistles vary from encouraging, rebuke, prophetic, doctrinal and so on. Yet the heart of it is the heart for God. I do not think it is possible to be the same person everywhere. You play different roles at all times. Student, teacher, friend, lover, disciplinarian. But at the root of it we are a christian.

That means we love. The theology of christianity is love. As a lover, you know how to show passionate and intimate love, aside from sex. As a teacher, you show love for your students, wanting them to achieve their destiny. As a student, you show love for the subject, desiring to understand the truth behind the words. As a businessman, you show love for your clients, not desiring to cheat but only have your clients best interests at heart.

Ok E! asked me to give fluffy post. So i shall.
I am wondering if i should buy a hush puppy shoe. Ok that is not right; I need shoes that are less ah pek then mine. Will go buy later.

Cop Out

We (me and my friends) had a good discussion on copping out.

My friend said one thing that pissed her off about religion was that we copped out. To many questions, we answer "That's God's will", "No one can fully understand why".

I agree with her that such statements could be construed and could actually be used as an answer to avoid admitting ignorance. It could be a cop out.

But from a believer's perspective, we say such things with conviction because we believe it to be.

To the question of suffering, i realise that every biblical response can be torn down by a non biblical response. (Biblical simply means an answer from the bible).

At the core of the argument is this sentence "You cannot rationalise everything". The christian believes that. The skeptics would say that you must be able to rationalise everything. We have a brain, we need to be able to understand why. The christian will say, but the why is not always for man to know. The skeptics then retort that is copping out. (This is not exactly what we discussed).

Faith is both rational and irrational. We do have a basis for faith: Bible, experiences, prayer. It is irrational: It cannot be fully rationalised. But like the negative number example Philip Pullman gives, Faith can never be fully rationalised. Once it is rationalised, it dies.

Gossiping

Today i asked myself, when does it change from gossip to concerned.

People talk about other people. Sometimes in jest, sometimes maliciously, sometimes to care. We talk about other people, colleagues, friends, family. It happens. No one can say that they do not talk about other people. But when does talking about others become gossip and when does it become caring.

I was in the toilet and God said something about that. (David sat on throne for 40 years, i sit for 40s.). Gossip is when we talk about people without intention of doing anything to help. Concern is when we share information about people with the intention of helping the person. (in both cases, the said person is not around).

Bible tells us that people who sow discord are the most hated by God. They break relationships, they break communion. God dislikes such people because they go against the very character of God. Above all else, God is love. God is relationship. For God so loved the world. Whoever does not love does not know God. I am the Lord your God. Adam walked with God. How can two walk together unless they are agreed. God is relational.

I want to learn to be a good friend, i want to learn to stop gossiping. I want to learn to back away when people start to gossip.

Weary, Yet Ready

I am tired.

Do not get me wrong; I love teaching. I love my students. It is just that I am spiritually weary.

I think I know why. I have not met up with friends for a long time. I dun just mean christian friends, but friends from my own college. My colleagues are exactly that, colleagues, not friends. I think that drains me, because i have always wanted to be someone who is approachable and able to make friends easily.

Yet as i ponder on why I grow weary, I hear God saying this: Then go.

Friendship is grows. It takes time and effort. Sometimes, i just do not bother with the people, and i do not know why i am such a person. I do feel like a person who does not understand what makes a friend, though i may know in my head, my heart is devoid of such understanding.

Father, would you give me a spirit of friendship, that i may know and love my colleagues more.

Two Issues, Unrelated

I ama bout to talk about two separate issues.

One. I was at a open air carpark, and saw a very nice car. Honda Civic Type R, UK version. Now it is a powerful lovely car. A potential next car for yours truly. Unfortunately, the chap driving it, (who incidentally was with a hot chick) could not ( and i really mean COULD NOT) park the car. The lovely car was exposed to repeated attempts to enter a massive lot, it was humiliated by a driver of low ability. The car must have been so upset, when the driver, after holding up traffic for the better part of 10 minutes gave up and drove off. What made it worse was an even larger car, the Lexus RX 350 SUV nonchalantly parked into the space. Argh, why are good cars in such drivers hands.


And secondly, this comment i have heard.
"Who to blame then? Government and TV for imparting wrong messages to them and the failure of parents to teach properly (sic)"

Everyone blames the government, the media. Some blame the parents. But few discuss solutions. We become a nation of blamers, fingerpointers. We are quick to blame, slow to admit, slower still to repair.

It is a solution for the whole society, parents teaching the child discernment about Media and truth. Church preaching Discernment and wisdom, not blind obedience. Schools teaching understanding and knowledge instead of just the ranking system. Why have we focused on issues that are temporal and not deeper issues of behaviour?

As a teacher, i told myself my objective is first "To teach the child to be a person of integrity and of statue," and of equal importance, "To educate the child to love Economics". Because a teacher must do both, educate the child in the course of study as well as to reach and make an impact in the student's life.

Let's stop blaming people for the problems, and lets start dealing with the solution.

School

I enjoyed my class today, but i dunno if it is what i want to do.

I love my students. I love my colleagues, bosses. I really love the environment I am in. I just feel bit down now and i cannot explain it.

Perhaps it is because i have not really spent time with God over the last few days. Perhaps it is something else. A spiritual attack. I don't know. Whatever, I love what i am doing. And i need to press on.

Work

I am starting work tmr.

I am now officially a teacher, at a particular Junior College. I shall refrain from typing the name of the College out, because Google is the new police.

Pray that I have God's blessing as i step into the new world. Pray that i stay close to God. I want to, i need to.

Starting work tmr. Wonder how.