The Confessions of A Hedonese

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December 13, 2005

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Mediation the wiser path to take

New Straits Times article by Zainah Anwar IN August 1998, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar University caused a stir in Malaysia when he publicly declared that Islam recognises freedom of religion and Muslims are free to leave Islam as long as they do not harm the religion. Dr Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi believes that there can be no compulsion in Islam. He asked what was the point in forcing those who wanted to leave Islam "to stay as this will only make them hypocrites". "It’s probably Allah’s will to save us from worse harm which these people could have caused if they had remained in Islam," he said. His opinion was supported by many others, including the then minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Dr Abdul Hamid Othman who reiterated that the government had no plans to take any punitive action against those who peacefully changed their religion. As could be expected, the Pas mursyidul am, Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat, expressed disbelief. He questioned the accuracy of th...

How To Go Heaven Or How The Heavens Go?

Leon kicked off The Agora series of workshops based on the RZIM Bali conference with a presentation on "God & Science". Check out the exciting notes here. Next up, Steven Sim will be presenting on "The Lotus & The Cross" - on how we could engage resurgent Buddhism in our own backyard. Date: 9 October (Sunday) Time: 1.45 pm Location: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church ( Location Map ) After Leon's presentation, we had an interesting session on Q&A... A UM student asked, "Why can't evolution and creation be compatible?" I stuck my neck out to challenge our usual 'creationist' model a bit... Do we really need a person to repent of Darwinism FIRST before becoming a follower of Jesus? (Btw I'm not Darwinist) A teenager, whose ambition is to be a 'missionary scientist', was glad tat we are on the same wavelength. He was unsatisfied with the current impasse, hopeful that future discovery will show us a better way. A ne...

The Future of Humanity

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing. ~Car...

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