San’s family journal

Gen 2:17  except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.”Gen 3:1  Now the snake was the most cunning animal that the LORD God had made. The snake asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat fruit from any tree in the garden?” Gen 3:2  “We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden,” the woman answered, Gen 3:3  “except the tree in the middle of it. God told us not to eat the fruit of that tree or even touch it; if we do, we will die.” Gen 3:4  The snake replied, “That’s not true; you will not die. Gen 3:5  God said that because he knows that when you eat it, you will be like God and know what is good and what is bad.” Gen 3:6  The woman saw how beautiful the tree was and how good its fruit would be to eat, and she thought how wonderful it would be to become wise. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, and he also ate it. Gen 3:7  As soon as they had eaten it, they were given understanding and realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and covered themselves. 

Some people say that Sin is actually making the wrong decisions and I believe that might be the essence of what sin is. Thus it is a clear logical way to say that God didn’t create something called Sin and Sin was originated from God’s creation and not from God.

Then the next thing to ask is when did Sin come into the world. Some say after Adam ate the fruit, Sin came into the world. In my opinion, Sin first appeared when Eve was given the option that she would not die of eating the fruit. With that in mind, the scope of her choices over what to eat and not to eat has widen and after some consideration which is actually the process of making choice that she thought that how wonderful it would be to become wise. Then come Adam as he saw that Eve was still alive after eating the fruit, a new possibility opened up to him. By then Adam still had the option whether to eat or not to eat, but I guess a normal man would think that it is no way that I am going to let a woman become more wiser than me and hence he ate the fruit as well.

This might not be what was happening back then, but I guess when new option is opened up with choices available and coupled with our decision making process that based on something not absolute like our ego, pride and as well as pleasure then there is when Sin begins to appear. When God’s instruction which is “not to eat the fruit or else you will die the same day” was still absolute, both Adam and Eve obey without much problem as they didn’t have other options.

That is why there are so many problems in this sinful world nowadays when people think that there are no more absolute principles in living one’s life. Even if we know that there are still absolute principles in living our lives, but we are also facing a lot of difficulties in choosing the correct lifestyle because we have so many options that are available to us where we have to consider the pride, ego, pleasure, status and so on.

Then is it okay to say that Adam and Eve will never sin if the snake didn’t appear to them? This is another question that has been answered where the snake did appear. You may say, come on, what kind of answer was that. Let’s see… why God put a tree that did nothing but a pathway to a sinful live in Eden at the first place? Logically, that means that Both Adam and Eve were able to sin, or else it would be meaningless to have the tree there. To end this in a very swift way, in short, God outsmarted Devil.

Grace saw our marriage photo albums and she wondered why she was not in any of the photos. She asked me where was she at the time of our marriage. So… this is one of the million dollar questions and it did take me some time to come back to her.

 So… I replied her that at that time, one half of herself is in Yen’s body and the other one half in my body. She got joined up after Yen and I got married. She accepted the reply with a thumb up and to my amazement, she did remember my answer at the time well as she reiterate the answer to us yesterday when I told Yen this small incident.

Guess it is not a simple job to educate a child after all and it is a real life example for me that parents should not simple give their children some vague answer to get through those million dollar questions as we are not answering the question for now, but possibly the rest of our children’s life.  

Today is the first day of the semester break. That means I have about two weeks to myself after all the marking of final examination papers and related administration works. The first thing I have to do is to come out with a proposal for my Ph.D enrollment application. The other thing that I plan to do is to give more thoughts on the theology that I have started.

So, I guess I have pretty much sure of what I am going to do in the next five years. I am also sure that Grace will be doing just fine during my years of study. But I am a bit worry about myself and I am actually showing the sign of regression already. Anyhow, I believe if I give me best to what I am doing, God will do the rest.

Grace was having diarrhea since a week ago. She was diagnosed by a first-time-met doctor with bacteria infection on the stomach again. Then Grace was prescribed a 5-day course of anti-biotic. During the time when she was on medicine, the diarrhea made a deep plunge as Grace started to pass watery stool and it lasted for the whole course of anti-biotic. Then we took the advice of my mother-in-law and gave her some Chinese tradition herb medicine and Grace’s stool began to turn from watery form to dough form. Grace noticed the changes and she commented that her stool has turned from ugly to beautiful.

UMNO Youth took to the street and protested against the new chief minister regarding the NEP issue at Komtar, Pulau Pinang last week. If I can recall it correctly, when the Hindraf people, Bersih people, Lawyer people and some other human rights people were not allowed to gather because the BN government said that “It was not our way of doing thing.”

The other thing is that the UMNO assemblyman called to BN federal government to scrap the planned mega project as the people have voted for a new state government and the state government has to do the projects themselves. If I can recall correctly, BN government always said that they are the government for all the people.

Before the election, I was really troubled by the fact Malaysian may actually refuse changes and refuse show their dissatisfactions through their votes because the racial and religious tension as told by the BN government. Two days has passed after the election and everything still going in a pretty normal way. So I guess I can officially call that as a threat from the BN government.

In fact, you do not need to have a sound political sense to know that the government issued that kind of warning only shows that all this while they have been doing nothing to improve the racial unity and religious freedom and causes all the tension. That gave us more reason not to vote them. If they have been putting in efforts over the last few decades through power sharing and so and so… whoever takes over the government, the people will still go on with their lives as nothing has happened.

Anyhow, I sure hope that the opposition will really appreciate this opportunity and produce good result in the next 5 years. At the same time, I also hope that BN government will reflex sincerely on what has gone wrong. And lastly the most important thing is the people have to wake up also to learn that for Malaysia to move forward, infrastructure development that has been the ace of BN government is not enough. We need a government that really promote the racial harmony and religious freedom at the same time fair and just.

It was totally out of my expectation that 12^th General Election of Malaysia turned out to be a show of citizen power and the maturity of Bangsa Malaysia. The outcome of the election couldn’t not be achieved if the dominant Malay didn’t cast their votes for the opposition. I am really glad that Malaysians finally come to their own stand and want justice to be served instead of having a government that is utterly corrupted and unfair.

Another achievement made was that Malaysians are not longer fell for the racial and religious threat use by the BN government to deter the citizens to vote for the opposition. If the BN government was fair and just, the racial and religious shouldn’t be any issue at all. Bravo! Malaysia, Bravo! Malaysian. Nonetheless, with hope comes the holes that yet to be covered. 

I read from newspaper few days ago about our PM saying something like don’t let opposition do experiment with our future. Today, on The Sun I read that our DPM asked Kelantanese to give them a try and if they failed to deliver, then the people there can always elect a new government at the next election. So… why can’t we give the opposition a try in ruling Malaysia and if they are not doing well then only we reinstate the coalition in the next election?

There is another political advertisement saying that our CA friend have secured RM550 million for 450 new villages over the last 8 years. So, let’s practice some mathematics shall we. So… that will be about RM150 thousand per village per year. Now… do you know how much Datuk Z’s mansion costs?

Our friend talks about development which is actually can be done by anyone that is in power whether it is blue star or the red rocket. You may have a road without potholes but you cannot have a land to build your temple or church. You may have some money to renovate the SRJK in your village but your children will not be yours if your spouse converts to Islam. You may get a nice play ground near your house but you have to pay for your child education in IPTS. You may have a good lamp post outside you house but your child only enrolled by IPTA to study B.Sc instead of B.Eng.

So… if RM150 thousand per year is good enough for you, then I guess we can forget about our next generation.

Now I know that there are 133000 graduates of KTAR because of the some CA guys saying LOUDLY in the newspapers while they claim that they work quietly. The question is why they are so proud of the 133000 figure? Wouldn’t it be better if the advertisement sounds like this: 133000 graduated from IPTA?