I feel good today. It's like I've come to this understanding within myself that life is life, gotta face it head-on. Like what my cousin had put on his MSN personal message: positivity! Not doubting myself here, but let's see how long this will last. You see, I've been reading Shin's Cancer Blog. I knew about this blog very long before. Then, I had skimmed through, found it uninteresting so very soon, it was forgotten. Last night, I stumbled on it again. This time, I read and I haven't stopped. I'm at the June 17, 2008 entry. But I'm reading it back to front so I know the end, or rather, how soon the end came, thus you can say I'm now reading... the journey to the end? Somehow, that makes it sound more morbid than it actually is but the truth is, it is exactly that - the journey to the end.
I like how she's so logical - an object is an object, a sickness is a sickness, and life is life. Every thing is taken simply as what it is. I'll live till I die, she said. And by living, she meant spending quality time with her loved ones. I like how she managed to strike such a great balance between being realistic and positive. This is something I hope I will achieve eventually.
There were also her views on religion (mainly Christianity) that I found myself identifying with. Prior to this, I also had a long conversation with Yin on the very same topic on Tuesday night. I guess part of the reason behind the frequent discussions on religion these days can be attributed to the fact that Yin's studying a religion module this semester. Shin, in her blog, was more skeptical about the need for God, whereas we are more skeptical of the power of God.
Let's take these two scenarios. The black dots represent a believer (B) since forever, and the red dots represent a non-believer-turned-believer (NB) (Yin said I should draw it for better illustration). Suppose B faces a crisis and found a solution for it, how does he know his solution is a result of God and not his own abilities? Our theory is: If you look at this logically, since praying was done pre-crisis, post-crisis pre-solution, and post-solution, it should be regarded as a constant since there were no changes in behaviour. If that was the case, then the only other thing that could have let B to his solution would be his abilities, i.e. thought processes, experience, etc., because those are what would have changed during the intermediate period. Unless it is conceded that God doesn't listen all the time (i.e. effect of praying is not a constant), a believer's explanation for arriving at a solution (e.g. by God's grace) is not plausible. In another instance, the believer's explanation will be also be plausible if a non-believer (NB) who didn't pray pre-crisis meets with a crisis, starts praying, then finds a solution because then praying would not be a constant and we can attribute the finding of a solution to it. But how many of such cases (NB) do we hear of? I can safely say the majority of those we hear are from B.So do we really need a religion in our life?
P.s. We draw the most references to Christianity because it's everywhere and so many people claim to have the knowledge and attempt to share it. It doesn't mean that we're not skeptical about the other religions too.