Documentary - "The Bible Revolution"

I watched a very informative documentary called "The Bible Revolution" on Google Video this morning (see below for hyperlink), which should be of great interest to my Christian friends. If you are not a Christian, the history of the English bible, which is what this documentary is about, will still be very educational.

I find it fascinating that there is more than 38000 different Christian denominations in the world (grouped under 5 major branches). Why are there Catholics, Protestants, Anglicans, Presbysterians etc when at the heart of it, they all worship the same Jesus Christ? Apparently, many of the breakaway factions came about simply because of differences over the bible!

The first OFFICIAL bible was authorised in the year 382 by the Roman Catholic church. At that time, all the existing texts were only written in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Roman Catholic church translated these texts into Latin (the language of the Roman Empire), and made the Latin compilation the official Christian bible.

However, with the fall of the Roman Empire in the year 476, the Latin language slowly declined and fell from disuse. By the late 16th century, most people in Europe could not speak Latin. Latin was a "dead" language mastered mainly by intellectuals and the church, and not by the common folks. The common folks could not read the Latin bible on their own, and had to hear the bible stories from the priests of the Catholic church (in the early 1500s, all churches in Europe were Catholic churches).

In England, William Tyndale translated the bible into English in 1523. The Catholic church was against the translation (they insisted that only their Latin version is the one-and-true bible). William Tyndale was arrested in 1535 for heresy and treason simply because of publishing the bible in English. He was executed by the Catholic church by being burnt on the stake in 1536.

In Germany, Martin Luther had also translated the bible into German (also in 1523). Now that the bible can be read by the common folks in Europe, the people realised that many of the Catholic church practices were NEVER taught by Jesus nor even documented in the bible. The practices were pure inventions of the Catholic church. Martin Luther initiated a movement to eliminate the invented Catholic practices from his church movement, which became the birth of Protestantism Christianity.

With the English bible in the hands of the common folks in England, Protestantism was also taking root there against the Catholic practices. Finally, the notorious King Henry VIII (who married SIX TIMES and who is rumoured to have fathered many illegitimate children), decided to sever all connections between the Church of England and the Catholic church. The reason: so that he could divorce his first wife Catherine to marry Anne without seeking the Pope's permission!

Queen Catherine gave birth to Mary, while Queen Anne gave birth to Elizabeth. Mary was Catholic, while Elizabeth was Protestant.

The severance of England from the Catholic church angered the Pope, who initiated a war against England. Within England itself, there was a lot of power play between Catholics and Protestants supporters. When King Edward, who succeeded Henry VIII, died in 1553, the Catholics manage to install Mary as the Queen of England. Queen Mary immediately started repairing ties with the Pope and the Catholic church. During her reign, almost 300 Protestants were burnt at the stake for heresy, resulting in the term "Bloody Mary" being used to refer to her.

Unfortunately, Queen Mary died childless, and Queen Elizabeth I inherited the throne in 1558. By deft political manipulation, Elizabeth I managed to strike a compromise between the Catholic and Protestant forces in the church, resulting in the amalgam known today as Anglican Christianity. This is why Anglicanism contains aspects of both Catholic and Protestant practices.

In 1611, England published the "King James Version" of the English bible. By all intents and purposes, the KJV version of the bible is William Tyndale's bible.

Through his English translation of the bible, William Tyndale left a huge impact on the English language. Many famous English idioms and phrases we use today such as:

• Am I my brother's keeper?
• Stranger in a strange land
• Burning bush
• An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
• Spare the rod and spoil the child
• Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die
• See eye to eye
• Can the leopard change his spots?
• In the lion's den
• Man shall not live by bread alone
• Turn the other cheek
• Cast your pearls before swine
• Wolf in sheep's clothing
• New wine in old bottles
• He that is not with me is against me
• Sign of the times
• I wash my hands of it
• Physician, heal thyself
• Grapes of wrath
• Lost sheep
• Prodigal son
• Cast the first stone
• Doubting Thomas
• Through a glass, darkly
• The root of all evil
• Armageddon
• A thorn in the flesh
• Weeping and gnashing of teeth
• Go the extra mile

all originated from the English bible, and specifically from Tyndale's translation. Just as the English language owes much to William Shakespeare, its debt to William Tyndale is unmeasurable.

If the Catholic church had not violently countered the translation of the bible (people were burnt on the stake by the Catholic church simply for translating the bible!), there probably wouldn't be so many church denominations today. The history of the English bible is truly a dark and macabre one.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6101527704063312894

Science Lectures - "Growing Up In The Universe"

Professor Richard Dawkins is the famous evolutionary biologist and ethologist who wrote the book "The Selfish Gene" and introduced the word "meme" into everyday English. Richard Dawkins is also the current holder of the "Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science" at the University of Oxford.

In 1991, Richard Dawkins gave a series of 5 one-hour lectures on Science which was telecast on BBC television. These lectures were aimed at children and young adults. Recently, all 5 lectures were made available on the internet for free viewing online by Richard Dawkins' foundation (prior to the free release, you would have to buy the DVD to view them).

If you have young children who are interested in science (maybe they want work in the fast growing Biomedical/ Biotechnology industries that Singapore is investing huge amounts of money in currently when they grow up), they might find these science lectures interesting. I watched them last night, and they were so engrossing I had to watch all 5 of them at one sitting. They are exceptionally educational and absorbing.

This is a short segment from one of the lectures explaining how our human eyes have evolved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUOpaFVgKPw

If your children find this segment to be interesting, they may want to watch the entire 5 lectures. As for myself, I have never had science lessons when I was young presented in such a fascinating manner. Indeed, I found this series to be very illuminating as I had always marvelled at the incredible workings of the human eye. In another lecture, the even more complex brain and its workings are described.

All 5 lectures can be watched from the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science website:

http://richarddawkinsfoundation.org/foundation,growingupintheuniverse

Christian "Thiology" in Singapore Parliament

Thio Li Ann

I do not follow Singapore politics much as political discussions here are pretty dull and bland, focusing mainly on bread and butter issues. The PAP government is very effective in economic matters and providing for its citizens the lower level "deficiency needs" (as defined by Abraham Maslow) , but in return, curtails too much on creativity matters by enforcing excessive security and caution in these areas to ever fully provide the higher level "growth needs" required by Singapore to advance to the next level.

As such, I was not even aware that parliament had inducted into its chambers the vitriolic and dangerous Thio Li Ann until I read about her extremely vindictive and hate-filled speech on the S377A repeal recently.

It doesn't take much to quickly discern from her malevolent speech that Thio is a fundamentalist Christian who is hell bent to import into Singapore the same kind of fundamentalistic right-wing Christianity from the US that currently infects much American politics. Fortunately, Thio's rants have been countered in some excellent rebuttals like Janadas Devan's commentary in the Straits Times and articles in the blogosphere like this.

Personally, I have many issues with this kind of myopic thought processes contaminating our government, and to me, it all comes from a global onslaught by fundamentalist Christianity against secularism. Fundamentalist Christians are out to promote an agenda of proselytisation as vehemently as they claim homosexuals are promoting the "gay agenda". To fundamentalist Christians, their version of morality is God-ordained, and thus, the "true" morality that every human being "must" follow. Top of this list is the requirement (nay, commandment) that everyone "must" accept the Christian god as the one true God, failure of which is eternal damnation in a hell of fire and brimstones. Hence, the fanatical opposition to evolution, stem cell research, condoms and contraceptions, secularist thought, or heaven forbid, homosexuality! simply because they contravene writings in the Christian bible, which is accepted blindly as the gospel truth.

As a person of science living in the 21st century, I absolutely refuse to accept anything without questioning its veracity by testing it against science and reason. However, reason and rationality seems to be in short supply in the Singapore parliament as I read in the Straits Times that Thio's malicious speech was received by loud and boisterous thumpings of approvals from many of the other parliamentarians. (I am very glad to read that our PM, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, is not one of these "thumpers".)

To prevent the malicious beliefs of Thio and her ilk from acceptance by the general public, it is necessary to dismantle fundamentalist Christian thinking by tearing it down with science and reason, and to bring science and reason to the public.

1. Science and evidence

Fundamentalist Christians are guilty of first concluding that Yahweh (the Christian god) created the Earth 6000 years ago, and then going about looking for and showing only the evidence confirming Creationism, and loudly proclaim that science has proven Creationism to be true. In the process, they completely discard all the other (and overwhelming) evidences that show the Earth is much older than 6000 years old. This is because fundamentalist Christians always make their conclusion first ("God did it"), and then go about finding the proofs to confirm their previously formed opinion. Facts that do not confirm their pre-formed conclusion are jettisoned and ignored.

True scientists do not do this. Scientists first observe how nature behaves, make a hypothesis on how they think nature operates, and then look for more evidence to test if their hypothesis holds true or not. If any evidence is found that negates the hypothesis, the hypothesis is rejected, and a new hypothesis is made to accommodate the negative findings. The whole investigative cycle is then repeated. Scientific conclusions are thus always based on all evidences and facts found. Negative and contrarian evidence is never discarded, but is always used to hone and fine-tune the theory that is finally established.

I bring this up because Thio and her ilk claims that homosexuality is not natural, and that it is not in-born.

This is absolutely not true, and is against a mountain of scientific evidence that homosexuality is rampant in the animal kingdom. Thanks to YouTube, you can even view the homosexual behaviour of animals your self:

Gay penguins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UibmZXbiI3Y

Gay dogs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DXl_zW6OJc

Gay lions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl8VLG8hwJQ

Gay bucks (male deers): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dOvGC8t5mw

Gay pigs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plcM6rqHobQ

In fact, gay behaviour has been observed in 1500 species of animals and well documented by scientists (see Wikipedia and New Scientist). If this is "not natural", then, pray tell me, what is?

Personally, I have both effeminate male friends as well as very butch female friends, and they are all extremely nice people. I can see they are born this way (as they already exhibit such behaviour when young). Their sexual orientation are as natural as it comes, and in no way do I see them as "evil" or "immoral" people just because of their sexual orientation. And it is a fact one doesn't have to be an effeminate male or a butch female to be homosexual. Very masculine males and feminine females can also be sexually oriented to their own sex, such as these folks:

- Ian McKellen (Gandalf in "Lord of the Rings", Magneto in "X Men")

- Richard Hatch (Reality show winner in "Survivor")

- Ellen DeGeneres (TV comedian/host)

- Angelina Jolie (Angelina is bisexual)

The problem with faithheads like Thio is that she cannot see these people beyond their sexual orientation. Blinded by her faith, she sees all homosexual people as evil and immoral people, when in reality, sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with whether a person is evil or immoral. Straight men and women also cheat on their spouses, breaking up families and damaging children in the process. Are straight adulterers no less evil and immoral by Thio's religious standards?

2. Christian Hypocrisy

Because of ignorance and fear by the general public, homosexual people are frowned upon and looked down by society at large. To progress in society and live their lives safely, many must hide their sexual orientation and lead double lives. Many homosexual men and women marry and have children, but because their sexual orientation is in-born and innate, they cannot eradicate it, and many a time succumb to the craving to have sex with someone of their own gender.

However, because of fundamentalist Christian's abhorrence of homosexuality, gay people who are born in such environments often have to become hypocrites to loudly condemn homosexuality, when they are themselves born to such a bent.

The most famous of these hypocrites is Pastor Ted Haggard of the New Life Church. Haggard condemns all homosexuals as "sinners" and teaches that believing in Jesus Christ will cure them of their sins. Too bad he was gay and could not resist the temptation of having sex with Mike Jones, a male prostitute, who outed Haggard to the world.

The Roman Catholic Church is likewise tainted with its admission that many of its male priests had been sexually abusing boys in the 2006 court case that was splashed in all the news media. The Roman Catholic church is always condemning homosexuals, but in the end, they are uncovered as the true hypocrites that they are. Perhaps they should reflect more on Jesus exhortation that "he who is without sin can cast the first stone" (John 8:7)

It is also extremely ironic that Thio's invective was spewing with hatred of homosexuals when Christianity is supposed to be a religion of peace and love. Jesus may ask his followers to "love their enemies, turn the other cheek" etc (Luke 6:27 to 36). For Thio, I don't see much "love" in the hate-filled diatribe she gave in parliament. This is an aspect she shares with Haggard.

3. The Perfect God

If God is real and is all powerful, why must he create gay humans and animals?

Science is still trying to understand the reason why homosexuality exists in humans and animals. What is the evolutionary benefit of homosexuality? Generally, homosexuals who are not attracted to the opposite sex will not procreate, and hence will not propagate their lineage. Over hundreds and thousands of years, homosexuality should ought to have died out. Yet, it is still prevalent in the human and animal kingdoms.

If you are a Christian, and you believe that Yahweh created everything, then you must accede that Yahweh made homosexuals that way. But why would a "perfect" god make such people in the first place if he is going to condemn them in his bible? Homosexuals are shunned, looked down upon, and ill treated by society at large. Why would a "perfect" god make homosexuals, and then sanctify people like Thio and her ilk to carry out their condemnations of homosexuals and to mete out punishments on god's behalf? Can't a "perfect" god simply not make homosexuals in the first place?

As a rationalist, there is a very simple answer to the above. God is imaginary, and is created in men's image. The early humans cannot understand why homosexuals exist in their midst, so they mark them as imperfect beings and evil. They later ascribe their abhorrence of homosexuals to come from god. Unfortunately, they subsequently use the god reason to condemn homosexuals in general, advancing yet another aspect of circular reasoning (circular reasoning is prevalent in many of the reasons offered by Christians about why they believe their god is the "true" god).

4. Tyranny of the Masses

One of the edicts promoted by Thio and her "thumping" colleagues is that anal sex between a male and a female is not a crime, but anal sex between 2 males is. This is outright discrimination. If anal sex is a crime when practised by 2 males, it should also be a crime if it is committed by a male and a female!

Singapore law has been made to be an ass!

To be fair and equal, the Singapore government should have also kept S377 (anal sex between male and female) in the books and not repeal it and leaving only S377A. This way, the Singapore government can simply say anal sex is a crime, and we do not discriminate against criminals who perpetrate such activities regardless of whether they are man or woman.

However, by repealing S377 but not S377A, the Singapore government is now saying specifically that this is a crime only when committed by homosexual males.

There are many analogies (pun intended) of such discriminations against humanity in history:

a) women are second class people (as they still are in Saudi Arabia and many Muslim countries). Because Eve caused the fall of Man from the Garden of Eden (the Original Sin), women are also badly vilified in the Christian bible.

b) slaves are treated like goods that can be traded or purchased. Slavery is sanctioned by the Christian bible.

c) minority races are treated as second class people by the majority race

The Singapore government has always spoken out against discrimination of the minority, and has set about many rules and regulations to prevent the majority Chinese to compel their practices and beliefs on the minority Malays and Indians. Similarly, the government enshrines secularism so that no one religion is "holier than thou" against another religion. These actions are to be applauded.

However, the government has failed in this case to prevent the discrimination of an entire group of people simply because of their sexual orientation, and has allowed Christain Thiology (pun intended) to influence its thinking.

Thio and her ilk justifies this discrimination by claiming that the majority are against homosexuality, and therefore majority rules.

However, this makes for very bad laws.

Singapore is a very small country (minority) against much bigger countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and the US (majority). However, we have had political confrontations with all these countries, and in all cases, Singapore stood by United Nation laws that do not side with one country simply because that country has a much larger population than Singapore. A law should be based on reason, and not because it is the preference of a majority .

Just because the majority thinks one way does not mean that the majority is right. What is right should be the truth.

For example, for thousands of years, the majority believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, and that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. Minorities like Galileo Galilei who said that the Earth revolved around the Sun was condemned for blasphemy by the Catholic Church and incarcerated. Yet today, we know that Galileo was speaking the truth, and that the majority was wrong!

Thio's advocates that because the majority thinks that homosexuality is a sin, therefore Singapore law should follow majority thinking and make homosexuality a crime. This is basically advocating tyranny of the masses, and I am extremely concerned that the Singapore government has allowed its carefully crafted principles of equality and non-discrimination to be compromised by Thio and her ilk.

What To Do?

There is no "gay mafia" agenda as Thio would like Singaporeans to believe. The support for repealing S377A is simply because preserving S377A is flat out discriminatory.

This discrimination is due to fundamentalist Christianity thinking striking a hold in Singapore, and worse of all, in the high echelons of the Singapore government.

Thio will push Singapore society into a polarisation between fundamentalist Christians like herself and everyone else. Thio will divide people with her religious influenced rhetoric. Her "holier than thou" approach succeeds because there are many fundamentalist Christians who are biased with the same beliefs as hers.

It is vital that we open the eyes of people to the evidence in nature, and teach them to use science and reason to question such irrational beliefs. How can homosexuality be unnatural if even animals are homosexual? How can we conclude that homosexuality is unnatural, evil and immoral, and discard the overwhelming evidence that it isn't? Shouldn't the scientific way be adopted to study all the evidence first, not ignore negative evidence, before forming any conclusions about whether a person can be judged as evil and immoral because of his or her sexual orientation?

Using god to justify laws is just plain bad. What about people who don't believe in your version of god, or who don't believe in the supernatural? Why should they be subjected to laws by your god? Secularism is a proven model in governing Singapore. It must be protected, and must not be compromised by fundamentalist Christians as is happening now.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Europe underwent a philosophical transformation with a period known as the Age of Enlightenment. Although it is now the 21st century, I think we still need to go through this again to stamp out the resurfacing of irrationality, superstition, and tyranny. History does truly repeats itself.