Alternative Culture: Tragedy in school

 

Students setting up an edible garden, taken April 2021

Recently, Singapore experienced a murder in school . I do not want to write exactly about what happened.

In fact, what really surprised me was that numerous people from reddit to Facebook have chimed in. And to some extent, I understand. After all, everyone wants to rationalise such senseless violence. A volatile, unpredictable world can be scary for one to accept.

Senseless violence

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” -- Luke 13: 1-5

'We cannot make sense of what happened' -- Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong 

In a way, there is no sense to this violence. For the Christian, it is a recognition that this earthly realm is sinful and broken. It should wake us up from complacence and call us to repentance.

And that is the learning point I want to take from it.

Alternative Culture: Battle Royale Review

A band of school girls discuss how to survive the slaughter

One of the greatest things about being adult is that I can watch all the films that were previously restricted to me when I was a child. I wanted to watch many films as a youth such as Saving Private Ryan, The Passion of Christ and Battle Royale.

Thus when given a chance to watch the 2000 film Battle Royale recently, I jumped at it.

Premise
In alternate future of fascist Japan, delinquency rates skyrocketed. In response the government picked a class of high school students each year to dump them on an island. The students have to kill each other, and the last remaining student will be allowed to return to society. If they fail to do that within three days, their collars would detonate and kill them all. Yes, the Hunger Games took inspiration from this film.

The reaction of the students differ. How do you respond to such a horrible situation?

Response 1: Play the game

Mitsuko, one of the female students decided to play the game. Using her assets like her good looks and acquired weapons, she sees no wrong in attempting to win the game by killing as many as possible. After all if she refuses to win, there was nothing to stop others from killing her.

Response 2: Avoid reality

Another female student, Megumi refuses to engage the game and seeks refuge into her own little world. In doing no harm, she hopes in vain. She forgets that there are people out there who are willing to kill her to ensure their well-being.

Response 3: Find another way

Some of the students like Yukie is determined to find a way to defeat their captors non-violently. They attempt find a flaw within the captivity system and save as many as they can.

How do we respond to the world?

I am not sure what the intent of creator of Battle Royale was. Yet I find similarities between my observations of real people and the students in the film.

There are many who resort to response 1 in which they seek to gain as much from the world in terms of power, wealth or any other gain. These are the high achievers we admire in our mundane lives.

Yet there are others who seek response 2 because they reject real truth for the fantasy of comfort. These are the hedonist aka the pleasure seekers.

But both response 1 and 2 cannot save us.

Yet Jesus offers us a way out of the struggle of everyday life.

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

-- Romans 3:22-24

So why not choose response 3 and explore Christianity?

With Due Respect: My Christian friend is a bad example!

"The worst people I know are Christians"

When I was in the military, one of the reasons I hesitated in becoming a Christian was because some of the worst people I worked with were Christians. They would avoid responsiblities, feign illnesses and were undependable. Their terrible work ethic and moral behaviour were reprehensible to me.

Why should any non-Christian be attracted to Christ in the light of the behaviour of his followers?


Some Christians have done terrible stuff
Now I have to admit this: Some Christians have done terrible stuff in history. Many people have listed the examples of the Crusades and the Inquisition that have caused many deaths in the name of Christ. Torquemada, one of the Spanish Inquisitors, deported more than 40,000 Jews and was estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 2,000 people during the Spanish Inquisition.

If following Christ maybe leads to people doing horrible things, it is little wonder people find Christianity a turn-off.

Some non-Christians have also done terrible stuff
However, we need to be fair. Non-Christians have also done many terrible things in the name of their worldview. During the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao of China caused the death of millions for his view of atheisitic Communism. During World War II, the Japanese killed millions in the name of their divine Emperor or Shinto Buddhism.

If not following Christianity also may result horrific things, where does this lead us?

What about the issue of truth?
However in philsophy, this line of logic (that the argument is bad because the person saying it is bad) is an ad-hoc argument (Sire, 2006). In other words, an argument is cannot be considered invalid just because a person is of bad character.

As someone who is seeking the truth, one must be able to explore statements independent of whoever says it.

Conclusion
In our effort to discern the truthfulness of arguments, one must be wary not to focus on the ills of the speaker. However, in Christianity we have Jesus saying that he is God. Why not spend time discerning his claim?

References
Sire, J. (2006) Why Good Arguments Often Fail

With due respect: A powerful and loving God would not allow pain and suffering!

It is one of the most powerful questions I ever encountered, and it was one of the questions that drove me away from Christianity in my younger days. Yet years later, the same question drove me back to Christianity. So let's try to handle the question-- how can a omnipotent and benevolent God allow evil in the world?

Assumptions
Let's put into things into perspective. The question states three things:

1) God is all-powerful
2) God is all-good
3) Evil exist

And that all three things cannot exist together logically. However, the accuser would be right if one of the two following assumptions was true--

A) There is no logical reason why an all-powerful and all-good God would allow evil in the world
B) It is God's will for us to be senily happy

Poor apologetics
Before I start, I would like to say I will be handling the philosophical/spiritual problem of pain and evil. In other words I skip over the practical reasons of evil, such as evolutionary explanations for pain. For example-- the fact that our nerves can detect danger enables us to survive hazards.

That said, any defence that a Christian makes must not reject any of three realities-- that God is all-good, all-power, and that evil exist. For instance, the Christian cannot 'justify' evil. To justify evil is to deny the existance of evil (the reason why something is evil is that it cannot be justified). Are there reasons for evil? Yes reasons, but not justification.

Free-will defence
 For God to be good, (and fair), He has to allows us to experience consequences of every action anyone (or anything) makes (Lewis, 1940). There is no point giving us freedom to choose, while taking away consequences of the choice. If one chooses an evil act, he and others must face the results of that choice-- be it death or imprisonment.


What about natural disasters?
While most people can accept that evils commited by men, few can "excuse" God from the reponsibility of natural disasters. But the thing is that either for God to be omnipotent, He is involved in everything, or nothing. The natural laws that run our universe cannot be broken by any whim and fancy.

On other hand, I have no problem accepting miracles do happen, but they should happen rarely (hence the term 'miracles'). Although one may claim that God is unfair in saving others, one must remember, nowhere in the Bible claims that it is God's will for all of us to be healthy and wealthy. It is His will for all of us to be reconcile with Him ultimately.

Then how is God good?
In Christianity, God allows evil, yet it is not His will. He may use our acts of evil, to bring about His will (Genesis 50:20). God hates evil, but respects our decisions to choose it over Him (Platinga, 1977).

Problem with naturalism
The problem is simple-- without God, how do you know something is evil? Yet the thought process complex-- one may attribute morality to the natural world, but if nature is "red in tooth and claw", why should we view something that happens naturally such as death and destruction as evil? CS Lewis (1952) explores this concept in Mere Christianity, claiming that if anything,the existance of evil hints towards a god. Afterall, one does not call something unjust, unless he/she has an idea of what justice is.

Conclusion
Although the problem of evil has often been touted as a problem for a Christian God, from the Christian view it is not, and from a theistic view, it hints towards the existance of God. In fact, most philosophers regard the logical problem of evil to haven been sufficiently refuted (Gutting, 2009).

Postscript for the Christians
Yet for the followers of Christ, Jesus never promised freedom from suffering or pain from this earth. He told us that that in this world we will have trouble, but we can take heart -- He has overcome the world (John 16:33)

References

Lewis, C.S (1940) The Problem of Pain

Lewis, C.S. (1952) Mere Christianity

Gutting, G. (2009) What Philosophers Know: Case Studies in Recent Analytic Philosophy

Platinga, A. (1977) God, Freedom and Evil