Open Thread #50

I wonder how the Republicans will explain this:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=california%20water&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

So, having less snow in the mountains isn’t linked to global warming, right?

And for that matter, relationships. I dated a half Irish girl from campus for a bit and she was so paranoid about men in general it was funny.

Out of respect for the grieving mother, I’m posting this here.

Anyway, Pawi, between your behavior here and your first comment in the post above, I’ve decided to ban you for the time being.

Pawi, this is why you should have contacted me. Now it may be too late, but my twelve-step program is always open to you. You will need my help when Marmot lets you back in the hole.

Piper, you probably should consider contacting me as well. pawis.conscience@gmail.com

Do it now. If not, I will hound you like the Others on Lost.

I dated a half Irish girl from campus for a bit and she was so paranoid about men in general it was funny.

Did it have anything to do with you being “stacked”?

If Pawi quickly jumped to ethnic or racial stereotypes about Koreans, he mocked Koreans, most of his statements were harsh criticisms or hateful attacks on Koreans, and he made no secret of his contempt for Koreans, he might be a popular guy at Marmot’s Hole celebrated for his wit.

99% of communication is about style, and that little turd has none.

Iceberg’s comment above pretty much expresses my take on Pawi and this situation, but I’d add one thing.

Another commenter wrote that Pawi ‘did go too far with the grieving mother, but Pawi-hatred didn’t start there’. Quite right in that this isn’t the first time he’s gotten a negative reaction, but I really feel that this situation is different.

Even if Pawi didn’t intend to address the mother, his comment was written in such a way that it did. Yet when this was made clear to him, he offered no quick apology for what could be taken as an insult to a mother who had just lost her son. I mean, if his insult was purely inadvertant, wouldn’t that seem the compassionate (not to mention logical) thing to do?

Instead, he waited and read comments, then rejoined the thread and started arguing again. Although he finally gave a grudging explanation (‘let me explain something to you…OK?????????????’), but still never bothered to consider the mother’s feelings.

For that, you’re really damaged, Pawi. No compassion for a mother who’s lost her son? Well, fuck your negativity, then. Take all your angst and tell it to someone who, like you, doesn’t give a damn about the feelings of those who’ve recently lost loved ones. Seriously, I hope you stayed banned until you can figure out that what you did what simply wrong.

“Pawi is condemned only because he’s on the other side.”

Nonsense. (What exactly is the “other side”, by the way?) He’d condemned by many because he’s a hateful prick, who at least for the most part, is talking out of his ass each and every time he posts.

I think we all can use a bit more of love around here…

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s6o5SehgtlE

If anyone should have been banned, it was “stackd”, not pawi.

I agree that Stacked is a “Pawi-in-waiting”, but I don’t see him sticking around here for long.

Hope I’m right.

Since Koreans’ distrust of foreigners predates their knowledge of the West, I’d say the former came first.

Yes, everyone in the world is out to get the poor, misunderstood Koreans.

“I guess knowledge and experience with the West didn’t deter but rather confirmed that their distrust was warranted.”

Confirmed an existing prejudice, eh? What a surprising outcome!

Confirmed an existing prejudice, eh? What a surprising outcome!”

Yes, precisely!

A Korean once told me, “Koreans think different is wrong”. To the extent this is true, this informs their view of “foreigners”, all of whom by definition, are different from Koreans.

Now, here you have it. No matter how well a foreigner speaks Korean, adapts to local customs and mores, and respects the culture, to Koreans, he is “wrong”, simply by virtue of what he is.

You are being disingenuous by implying that at one time Koreans were open-minded, welcoming naifs who became xenophobic only after “foreigners” (including expats) hurt them.

I don’t know whether you are a Korean, or another soft-headed Westerner, but your premise is mistaken.

Do you imagine that there are no Koreans living overseas, whether in the U.S., Canada, Australia, wherever, who do not harbor the same sort of negativity?

I mean, seriously, what is your point?

“Since Koreans’ distrust of foreigners predates their knowledge of the West, I’d say the former came first.”

Uhh… wasn’t xenophobia pretty much a universal human sentiment until very, very recently (in terms of human history)? How long has it been since racism has been labeled taboo in the “West”?

“A Korean once told me, “Koreans think different is wrong”. To the extent this is true, this informs their view of “foreigners”, all of whom by definition, are different from Koreans.

Now, here you have it. No matter how well a foreigner speaks Korean, adapts to local customs and mores, and respects the culture, to Koreans, he is “wrong”, simply by virtue of what he is.”

Unless he was the spokesperson for the South Korean people, or has telepathic abilities that can survey the minds of 50+million people, I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch of an argument.

My personal sentiment? Korea = Work in Progress, In Construction, Sorry for the Mess. For the people living in the construction area, my deepest sympathies.

“Is it really that much of a default response to say, “But the ‘West’ was/is just as bad”, whenever Korea is mentioned in a less than flattering light? It certainly seems to be.”

Dogbert, I’m really not trying to ‘defend’ anyone or any country here. Just pointing out the overall context of xenophobia. Chill.

“You are ethnic Korean, do you think that is not a prevalent sentiment, or do your experiences lead you to believe otherwise?”

I think that ‘Difference = Wrong’ sentiment is held too literally under your analysis. Assuming that cultural integration occurs on the part of the ‘foreigner’ and, with luck that some of these xenophobic tendencies calm down in Korea (and they seem to be, at an unknown and often unstable rate), it would be possible for ‘foreigners’ to integrate successfully into the SK society. In other words, I find your conclusion too pessimistic.

I’m really counting on ‘Guest’ sentiment and ‘Caring what other people think about you’ sentiment to be the catalyst for reducing/removing xenophobia. Perhaps, to be fair, I’m being too optimistic.

How is pointing out a context an argument for, or for that matter against, anything? Am I justifying the xenophobia in any way?

A: Korean shit smells like shit.
B: Well… doesn’t everyone’s shit smell like shit?

Is B trying to say that Korean shit doesn’t smell like shit? Probably not.

And because of this comment, the google ad will probably advertise laxatives. You’re welcome.

Title: Being Pawikirogi (2008)

Plot synopsis: A blogger in America discovers a door in his office that allows him to enter the mind and life of Pawikirogi for 15 minutes. He promptly sets out to exploit this discovery, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize that he’s actually entered the mind of Dr. Phil.

My personal sentiment? Korea = Work in Progress, In Construction, Sorry for the Mess. For the people living in the construction area, my deepest sympathies.

I agree wholeheartedly — my students sometimes get frustrated because their English learning curve isn’t as fast once they reach higher levels as it was back when they started, and had that exciting, “I learned five important, very useful words today!” feeling, and I remind them to compare their ability now with their ability a year ago, rather than with last week, to notice how far they’ve come — sort of like the way each morning you look in the mirror, your hair looks the same as the day before, but then suddenly, after four or six weeks, you say “whoa! I need a haircut!”

Yeah, Korea IS changing. . . but as with my students and their English ability, my theory is that the k-hating expats don’t stick around long enough to notice, or don’t step back and take a long enough view to notice how much progress DOES happen.

I haven’t been told, “Fuck you, go back to your country” since 2003. That counts for something.

The CEO of Samsung had to resign in disgrace, instead of burying the scandal with more bribes, the way he might have been able to do if it were 1995 instead of 2008. Things are way better here, even just compared to when I came in 2003, but when I’m emotional, I forget that, and pull no punches in my prose.

I’m really counting on ‘Guest’ sentiment and ‘Caring what other people think about you’ sentiment to be the catalyst for reducing/removing xenophobia. Perhaps, to be fair, I’m being too optimistic.

I think that one of the keys is waking Korea’s media up to the reality that the world IS watching (btw: this is piggybacking on stuff Metropolitician’s said — gotta credit my source), and there are no “in house issues” anymore, because of the speed of communication, and that when Coreana runs an ad that glamourizes nazis, or a kid dies in a Sauna, or comparative, international statistics about workplace gender equality are published, Korea’s domestic issues don’t disappear behind the veil of the Korean language anymore, the way they used to when so few foreigners spoke the language, and information moved more slowly. I think Korea’s media is really dropping the ball on this front, and continues to misuse their power of influence over the monolingual Korean-speakers, who are basically a captive audience for them.

Welcome to the Marmot’s Hole, Amyable. How’d your trial by fire go?

In my public speaking class, the topic of the day was “give me your thoughts on the American Beef situation” and the main thrust of my two-minute talk was, “Use your English ability to read international media sources.” I’m so glad my English fluency means that I can check Reuters, BBC, and http://www.projectcensored.org/ – a site devoted to noting the stories that were buried by governments or big businesses that have media influence.

“…I also believe that this much negativity about a country where expats freely decided to live in, isn’t healthy either.”

I don’t get this at all. There are certain things about living here that I don’t like – but I don’t quite believe that Utopia exits. Shit happens (and stinks) wherever you are.

Do you really think that some of the posters here do not freely and openly acknowledge problems in their home country? At the risk of sounding like a broken old record – this is a blog predominantly about Korea by and for those living in or who have lived in or have some sort of connection/interest with the place. You expect sunshine and lollipops everyday?

Which is probably why they often use 틀리다 for 다르다…

The very same thought has occurred to me as well.

Any native Korean speakers or linguists care to comment?

Hmm… but the statement would have been one of the four..

1. Difference is different
2. Different is wrong
3. Wrong is different
4. Wrong is wrong.

Unless this was a metaphysical philosophical musing, it would have to be #2.

You wouldn’t be the first one to be chased. Not by a long shot. (notice, though, that Bumfromkorea took up your case after you left).

I have had some great conversations here at the marmot’s hole, and it’s helped sharpen or clarify my thoughts about a range of K-topics, but it can be kind of hot in the kitchen sometimes.

I’m not going to say anything more about it here, but if you want to know some of my other thoughts on that, click on my gravatar and ask for them over at my own blog.

Regarding your original question/chicken and egg riddle back at 24:

Although the comments I read here are just a sample of the expat community in Korea, with so much distaste for the Korean culture and Korean ways, no wonder the Koreans are distrustful of foreigners. Which came first, Koreans distrust of foreigners or some expat’s expressed feelings of western culture superiority over Korean culture?

1. not all the commenters here live in Korea

2. there are a lot of defenders of Korea here, too, and not all of the defenders are koreans themselves — you just don’t know who’s from where, because it’s online, eh? but negative comments stick in people’s minds more strongly than well-developed, even-handed arguments.

3. some, maybe many, of the expats who write whiny, sarcastic blogs or comments about Korea when they live in Korea, would be writing whiny, sarcastic blogs and comments about any place they lived: bear in mind that when Peter talks about Paul, we learn as much about Peter as we do about Paul, on both sides of the debate (because there are people here and other places who harp on expats and foreigners just as harshly as some harp on Korea here)

but

4. i think for a lot of people, comment boards like this one or dave’s esl cafe, or some of the more nasty, sarcastic blogs, serve as a kind of catharsis. All day long, my white skin makes me an ambassador, puts me under a microscope, in my own neighbourhood, or in my conversation classes. I try to be as generous as I can with frustrating situations, and then sometimes I need to blow off steam, and word things more harshly than I really mean, if you actually put me to it.

When one gets tired of being an ambassador face-to-face, it’s fun to purge all one’s piss and vinegar and sarcasm and such online, where there’s a record of it, rather than just screaming into a pillow for a while.

5. most Koreans don’t form their trust/distrust stance about foreigners by reading the marmot’s hole comment boards. many more take what the media presents them on trust, or form their opinion from observation of the foreigners they meet/see around town. the expats who come in with smug superiority get sniped just as harshly here at Marm by the koreans who visit, as you got sniped by the expats.

@Mr. Carr

I’ve always wondered about how many people on your old base knew that Chuck Norris had served there.

The stories I’ve read have him as the first non-Korean to earn a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. And, that he was Charles Norris before he got tough in Korea.

What can you tell us?

He was there in 1958.

I just figured that he’d be the official godfather of the place and that you guys would have to pledge allegiance to the flag and Norris each morning.

They didn’t even have a plaque or nothing? Sad. I’m starting to doubt some of the facts I’ve read about him on the Internet.

the sad part is chuck norris is almost 70 and he could kick all of our asses!!!!

Basically these Evolution worshippers want to deny their “religious” background and want to escape from it.

The pseudo-science called Evolution lets them do it.

Hell, that is no way to do science. These people want to use science to do what they want to do.

Scientists have to keep an open mind. Entertain all possibilities and evidences.

Why this insistence on only “one way”? And, these zealots started to persecute scientists with different beliefs.

Talk about Spanish Inquisition.

Any scientific theory must be stated in such a way that it can be proven false. Countless theories have been discarded based on contradictory evidence, and our current understanding of science is collection of evidence-based theories not yet disproven.

The problem with ID is that it is impossible to disprove the existence of a higher power; hence, ID is not a scientific theory.

Sonagi,

All intelligent design says is that “we are not randomly evolved creatures”. There may be an alien, a machine, a lab, a time-machine that generated species.

If you intellectually honest, then you must entertain these other possibilities.

If you insist “evolution is the only way” then you are not honest. Especially, there are billions and billions stars.

I’m confused here… baduk, are you speaking against the Theory of Evolution or the concept of Natural Selection?

“In next several decades, we may actually see a creature made by man.”

Already happened… well, kinda.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10559637

“Why can’t you accept the possibility of species created outside of the earth and brought to here?”
That sounds like exogenesis… or the Church of Scientology.

I think that, when it comes to the argument between creationism (of any incarnation) and evolution, the biggest hindrance towards a meaningful discussion is the drastic difference in the definition. Besides, it is a bit strange that those two conflicts, considering that one is about how life started and the other is about progression from that start of life.

Baduk, Songai never said that life can’t have come from outer space, or from God, or that life isn’t a movie that conforms to some screenplay that God wrote before the universe existed. She just said, correctly, that these ideas are cannot be called science because they cannot be tested. If you can’t test it, it’s not science. That’s why religion isn’t science, and why there’s a difference between things called “science” and things still called “philosophy.”

(As an aside, what Sonagi was saying about “falsifying” an idea is the philosopher of science Karl Popper’s attempt to deal with problems of inductive reasoning where one tries to create a universal rule out of many single observations. The classic example is the black swan. All of the swans that people saw for hundreds of years were white, so some people said that “all swans are white.” But Karl Popper and would say that no, you can’t say all swans are white, you can only say that all of the swans you’ve ever seen are white. Maybe somewhere in the universe there’s a black swan that you just haven’t found yet. And it turns out that in Australia people later discovered some swans that were black, although they are very rare. So this is a problem with deductive reasoning that science has to deal with. But for our purposes it’s probably easier to just say that we can’t test for God because God is an assumption that can only be made before the facts are known.)

Baduk, it’s not really called evolution anymore. I believe the term they use is “Periodic Equilibrium”. There are no mutations that give any group of creatures a decided edge immediately. There are lethal and non-lethal mutations. If the mutation is non-lethal, it is passed into the gene pool. Then, when there is a mass extinction, sometimes that mutation does give the creature an edge in the vacated new niche, an area to exploit. Look at the Great Escarpment in Africa. If you do your homework, you’ll see that 99.9% of the fossilized remains hominids on the west side show the spinal chord coming up through the back of the skull case. On the east side there is a similar preponderance of remains showing the spinal chord coming into the skull from the bottom. When the cataclymic event that shaped the rift occured, it changed the east side from a deciduous forest to savanah. If you asked a space alien what was most striking about humans it wouldn’t talk about the size of our brains. It would say, “bipedal locomotion”. It enabled us to stand up and look for predators or game over the tall grasses of the savanah. It also freed our hands for making and carrying tools and weapons and carrying our children.
I don’t know everything but I go with the evidence. You could be right but evidence points in other directions.

Science and faith are different matters.

BINGO! We have a winner! wjk gets it.

“Baduk”, your comments seem like a weird combination P.K. Dick and some pentecostal preacher to me — part science and lots of fiction.

You remind me much of a recent book by Susan Jacoby “The Age of American Unreason“, wherein the current American-style love of ignorance is characterized by anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”).
The offspring of the two aforementioned traits have produced some real “monsters of the id” too.

day4night,

Actually, I like Bacon’s definition of science, that one can experimentally determine. Evolution cannot be tested in laboratory and it is just a theory.

However, if you go to the society of physics website, these people are trying to make this theory into a law. They lie and say that Evolution is a physical law, just like electricity. Fucking liars.

I like your story of swans. Yes, we are bound by this planet. Who know what goes in other planets.

When there are billions and billions of stars and billions of life forms probably, think that all creatures on earth were create right from here and from each other is very unprobable.

It is as likely that we are designed by some beings or machines to fit this planet.

However, as soon as a scientist even try to say anything along this line of logic, using mathematical probability, he is shunned. Immediately!

Evolution Nazis are real. Ask any biologist.

Now these Nazis are flexing their powers in sociology, psychology, physics, geology, astronomy, etc.

Where is the open mind in which scientific inquiries are conducted? Where is fairness?

These biologists(psedo-scientists and religious zealots) are so afraid that they expel (=destroy) any scientist who mentions “intellectual design”.

See the movie. I have known this for decades. Fucking biologists. Nazis.

“isn’t it usually the other way around where the religious zealots and pseudo-scientists are the ones mentioning creationism, and not the biologists?”

Lol don’t you know? Whacked out preachers and parents aren’t invading the PUBLIC school SCIENCE classroom and demanding that the SCIENCE teacher teach creationism/ID. It’s actually the biologist-Nazis invading churches and Sunday schools and telling them not to make sermons out of Genesis.

Pop Quiz

Which of the following courses in college have I learned extensively about creationism and ID, and was appropriate for the professors to have done so?

A) Molecular Genetics
B) Organic Evolution
C) Human Event (humanities class)
D) Vertebrate Zoology

If the answer isn’t obvious, you don’t know the actual purpose of academic freedom in universities or can’t distinguish science from beliefs.

I know that the theory of evolution is true. I believe (or subscribe myself to) in day-age postulate. Those two do not conflict because one is knowledge while the other is a belief. I don’t seek to question or find proof against/for the latter because I recognize it not as a science, but as a belief.

Also, one of the guys also called 2MB “slit eyed piece of deformed trash”…..go figure. I didn’t think that’s any way to talk about the president of one’s own motherland.

Any scientific theory must be stated in such a way that it can be proven false. Countless theories have been discarded based on contradictory evidence, and our current understanding of science is collection of evidence-based theories not yet disproven.

The problem with ID is that it is impossible to disprove the existence of a higher power; hence, ID is not a scientific theory.

Separation of Faith and Empiricism isn’t so evident in areas dealing with the Big Questions. When physicists like Steven Hawking talk about evidents happening in the nanoseconds after the Big Bang, this is a manifestation of faith.

>> #52

The Goat said:

The whole notion of ID is infinitely regressive which inevitably leads to contradictions or dismissive religious mumbo jumbo because of one simple quesiton…

If the complexity of the world cannot be explained by “chance” and needed a designer, the complexity of the designer must be unfathomable which begs the question etc etc.

I think we really need to give the old Ockham’s Razor argument a rest because there is an abundance of complexity in nature herself (nevermind the notion of a designer for the moment), which exists and has to be accounted for.

One key question that the materialists have never been able to demonstrate to anyone’s satisfaction is how did molecules spontaneously organize themselves to produce organic life?

Stanley Miller’s famous experiment was debunked in the 60s when it became apparent that he made inaccurate assumptions about the chemical content of primitive atmosphere but yet biology texts still cite this experiment and claim that he succeeded in producing organic molecules. Yeah, plastic and formaldehyde are also organic molecules. In the late 90s, a scientist demonstrated that one can take chemicals found in any typical lab and produce amino acids and eventually RNA.

However, these experiments all suffer from a fatal fundamental philosophical flaw in that in all such experiments, there is an Intelligent Agent (ie the experimenter) that conducted the experiment with a plan, purpose, and will.

If the complexity of the world cannot be explained by “chance” and needed a designer, the complexity of the designer must be unfathomable which begs the question etc etc.

“Chance” is another word for “miracle”. Eliminate God from the equation and science is left with the unenviable task of explaining miracles in a godless universe.

If that’s the case, then Las Vegas is the holiest place on Earth.

According to Evolution, a million monkeys playing the slot machines for a million years will eventually turn into Warren Buffet or Donald Trump.

Also, just to clear things up, humans are techically apes, rather than monkeys. There’s a difference.

From the perspective of a theological historian, naturalistic materialism is the opposite problem of what Christianity confronted in the first century Roman empire. Then it was the bias of the dominant culture based on Greek philosophy which abhorred the material world and elevated the spirit as pure and perfection, manifested in heresies such as gnosticism. It was equally false.

And here I thought that Christianity’s main problem was gnosticism was that the gnostics buttered their bread on the wrong side. Thanks for clearing up exactly how the gnostics were ‘wrong’ (as opposed to the ‘rightness’ of Christianity, I suppose)…

For edification of some, I will write about String theory. It is proven that there are other dimensions than our dimension.

Universe, as big as it is, is still in our dimension. However, the theory has proven that there are other dimensions.

As I wrote, we do not even know 1% about the physical universe.

And, these Evolution Nazis are INSISTING we came from Big bang and Evolution. All species from this planet only.

Talk about Flat Earth theory!

No no no no no! Not this again, please!!

http://roboseyo.blogspot.com/2008/05/warning-to-english-teachers-do-not-talk.html

And, these Evolution Nazis are INSISTING we came from Big bang and Evolution. All species from this planet only.

The Big Bang theory has enough directly observable confirmation (the red shift, decreasing density of the universe, galaxies spreading further apart, etc) that it would be foolish to deny it. It does not contradict the Christian faith. In fact, most secularists were opposed to the Big Bang theory because it implied that the universe had a definite beginning. Their worldview would have much preferred a universe that had an infinite past. Causal principles state (also the Kalam Cosmological Argument by William Lane Craig) that which has a beginning has a cause and this is consistent with Genesis. The Big Bang theory is only troublesome to uneducated fundamentalists who take Genesis literally (universe was created in 6 days). But the Bible itself acknowledges metaphorical language (“For a thousand years in your sight are like a day”, Psalms 90:4).

There is also no controversy between Christianity and micro-evolutionary biology, much of which is directly observable as well and is responsible for the fact that the fruit fly is favored tool of experimentation by micro-evolutionary biologists. It is macro-evolutionary theory that is troublesome, the idea that life sprang from a primordial soup, that somehow molecules became single-celled organism, and went on to produce all the different species and even things like consciousness and morality. It’s important to make the distinction.

The new frontiers of knowledge is getting to the point where things like the speed of light and the forbiddingly high energy levels required to conduct some Big Question related physics experiments is making the all the time-tested tools of classical empiricism (data collection, observation, measurement, analysis) seem obsolete. This is why scientists are increasingly sound like men of faith when they talk about Big Question related topics. The Huge Constants of physics and cosmology are forcing science and religion into each other’s faces.

Universe is a big, big place.

My own personal philosophical theology is that the sheer size of the universe and the forbiddingly huge constants make sense if humans were meant to live forever. This too is in agreement with Scripture.

Seems like a non-sequitur to me. Do you think we need all that extra space for a heaven and hell ever expanding to accommodate new arrivals?

I know you’re being sarcastic but I’m going to clarify “heaven” and “hell” anyway, both being words loaded with unnecessary and incorrect historical baggage.

“Heaven” is the universe (including Earth) restored to the original state that existed before The Fall, also referred to shalom by Judaism. Shalom is not simply a greeting used by Jews, it has a deeper theological meaning which can roughly be interpreted as “nothing broken or the state of rightness of everything, including the relationship between man and God”.

“Hell” is simply “eternal death” or “eternal separation from God”. Since God is omnipresent and sovereign over the universe, the only way an individual will be “eternally separated from God” is by complete physical and spiritual death.

Lest this sound a bit harsh, allow me to point out that it is also consistent with atheist philosophy about the ultimate fate. The atheist denies God’s existence. There is no after-life. After physical death, that’s it…you’re gone. Therefore, effectively, upon physical death, the atheist gets exactly what he believes. Hence, God is just.

What sort of justice does God mete out to Muslims and Jews who are expecting eternal life but haven’t accepted Christ?

It would take more experienced and finer theological minds to answer this question properly.

Having said that, Christianity is the sole true religion, with Christ and resurrection being the ultimate empirical proof of God’s existence; other major world faiths are an approximation of the truth.

Not everyone who calls themselves “Christian” is automatically assured of heaven (Matt 7:21). By the same token, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists are not automatically condemned to hell. What matters is what is in the heart, which only God knows, and apart from God there can be no perfect justice.

Someday we will be able to get in touch with and communicate with another civilization as advanced as or more advanced than ours. Netizen Kim, if that happened, do you think Christians would or should teach the aliens Christianity. Or do you think they would be already Christians praying to Jesus Christ ?

Sonagi,

You only consider things on this life. If you believe in the eternal life which will last 1000,000,000,000,000…years, how important is this life?

God is God. He has His reasons. We do not know all reasons; why He let sufferings continue on this life while, I believe, Christians will live in Paradise after death.

I consider this life to be a continuous boot camp. “Suffering builds character”. By the time I get called by God I will be ready to enter into God’s country and be an average citizen.

Netizen Kim,

I am one of those who still believe God created Earth in six days(24×6=144hrs).

He is God. He can do it. He create the Heaven and the Earth out of nothing. Out of Nothing!!!!

God could have done it in six days. And, it early days of creation, atoms may have had different half-life. Who guarantees that half-lives are never affected by extreme heat, flying speed, unknown force field, etc.

As I have said so many times, we are still in infancy. There are so many physical laws and scientific facts that are not known to us. Especially, outside of this planet.

Let’s not dismiss anything in the Bible till we know more. I give 50/50 chance that God created this planet in 144hrs. And, Earth may have been created before Sun and Stars. Very unlikely according to today’s science.

However, you never know. As we learn more about the Universe, we may find that Bible is still correct.

We see things darkly. When we get to Heaven, we will learn a lot of things about Universe and Human history.

Some of them may be exactly what they are written in Bible.

“Lakers beat San Antonio…”

Your strongest evidence yet that there is indeed a Ggod.

p.s.

A Lakers/Celtics final would kick ass just for the memories.

Go Celtics!

“Buy this, then you can go to Heaven. If you don’t, you may go to Hell.”

This is the con artist’s sales tactics.

Many people ask if God exists why so many bad thing happen? Why can’t God stop them all?

It is like a child asking his dad why can’t we buy 1000,000 ice creams.

1)It is not good for you to have that kind of world. If nothing bad happens then everyone will be so lazy, irresponsible and weird.

2)Men must lose his free will to stop bad things they do.

3)God wants to train his people, true Christians in this world. Why? I do not know for sure, but difficulties builds character. And, I think this character-building has eternal purpose.

I have the distinct feeling that _you_ think you know what God knows.

“Buy this, then you can go to Heaven. If you don’t, you may go to Hell.”

This is the con artist’s sales tactics.

Such a thing actually existed. They were called “indulgences”. Martin Luther took care of this problem in 1517 with his 95 Theses, which led to the Protestant Reformation.

Baduk, why would the Bible be more correct than some some other holy book, our current science, or anything else?

Why do I get the feeling that Korean culture and Christianity seem to be made perfect for each other?

- Blind Faith
- Unquestioned obedience
- Sheep-like tribal mentality
- “You’re either with us or against us” mentality..
- Intolerance for anything different (only choices are black/white)
- Enjoyment or feeling of self-fulfillment in rubbing one’s superiority or master in the faces of “non-believers” (foreigners)

Sorry…the parallels are just so exact that it’s impossible to point out. If you think about it, Christianity is a religion that is perfect for Korean thinking. No wonder so many Koreans have accepted it despite their 4900 years of glorious history before Christianity. It’s also interesting that no other nation besidees the Phillipines, in Asia has adopted this western religion with such open arms and popularity.

It makes you wonder about Korean pride in Asia…