While ah cat has been watching/reading Twilight saga, I have been watching another non-fictional saga unraveled over the past two weeks. It's about a Singapore NGO, called AWARE--Association of Women for Action and Research. I heard about this organization before as it was a fairly outspoken organization, especially on women issues, but I never paid much attention to it in the past since it is a women organization, till recently.....
On 28 March (Sat), something unusual happened such that it made news in the media.
A bunch of newcomers, who joined the NGO for just a few months, had won 9 out of 12 positions. Many old guards who had been with the organization since its establishment in 1984 lost the elections. And during the AGM, there was an unprecedented large turnout of new members (about 80%), who joined during Jan- March 2009. The number of turnout was tripled that of normal times. When this happened, people who read the news would naturally have the following questions in mind:
Who are these new women?
What do they wanna achieve?
Why was there such a big spike in new members during Jan- March 2009?
Where were they from?
What do they have in common?
What is their agenda?
Was this an orchestrated takeover or just simply a coincident (which is quite unlikely)?
Well, the ST (Straits Times) reporter was really smart in finding the links between the newcomers. Slowly, as more and more news were reported (either press media or online media), people began to see their hidden agenda. The unraveling of the incident has really been an exciting and interesting episode.
To let the public have some clues about the background of the newcomers, the reporter had given the following information:
- previously during the episode of the repeal of the anti-gay law 377A (which was then also hotly debated), a number of the newly elected members or spouse had written to the media to condemn gays and termed it as a "lifestyle", as if people intentionally wanna choose to be gay to be discriminated against.
- 6 of the newly elected members attend the same church
- The church they attended has a very strong view against homosexuals
With these 3 pieces of information, and a few subsequent statements made by the new members and their "mentor", known as Dr Thio Su Mien (former NUS Law Dean, who is clearly the mastermind of the whole orchestrated takeover) who appeared suddenly during the press conference, everything seemed to fall in place nicely. Guess what, Dr Thio, who is former Law Dean, tried to convinced the public that AWARE was promoting homosexual lifestyles, and the old Excos were promoting homosexuality with her flawed logic. Sometimes, it makes me wonder what does it mean to claim to be a christian when you can make such a false claim so blatantly and knowingly that even a person with secondary education knows that it's false (you can just read what AWARE has done in the past on its website), let alone a Law Dean. To know the arguments and counter arguments, you may refer to this blog post.
As the whole saga is too long to be told here, you can visit here if you are interested to know the whole saga in detail.
Now, you might ask: So what has it got to do with the bible?
As their agenda was exposed by the media and online bloggers, and their church was widely publicized, people start to question many things they found on the church's website, one of the articles found was this. In the article, there are some quotes from the bible that preach questionable/unacceptable values (related to woman) in the context of our modern society (you don't have to take my quotes, you can read the whole chapter on your own if you think that I quote out of context):
(i) Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 4:13, English Standard Version)
(ii) Let the woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a women to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing-- if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. ( 1 Timothy 2:11-15, English Standard Version)
(iii) Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband.......But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan. If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are really widows. (1 Timothy 5:9-16, English Standard Version)
All the three parts are clearly outrageous and are clearly preaching "stone-aged values", especially when read by a female who believes in gender equality.
I would especially like to comment on the third part. It's INSULTING, VERY VERY INSULTING. Mr Paul, you're insulting my mum OK! Let's see what Mr Paul said in point form:
- Only widow who is older than 60 years old is a real widow (if you read the whole chapter)
- younger widow has stronger sexual desire ("passions" is the euphemism), so they tend to marry again
- her choice to marry again is to be condemned
- young widows learn to be idlers, gossipers, slanderers, busybodies
- so, let them marry, bear children, do house chores, so that they don't have the chance to slander
- let woman who has relatives who are widows care for them, DON'T BURDEN THE CHURCH
- BECAUSE YOUNG WIDOWS are not REAL WIDOWS (This is really unconscionable and insulting to me!)
I am truly furious when I see this: condemning a woman whose husband has just passed away, just because SHE IS YOUNG (not more than 60)! And you call that a book that preaches love and salvation?! I bet you will be more outrageous if you read the whole chapter!
And how can the public not furious, not question, not criticize this kind of totally biased values? And this is not a quote from any person, it's from the "holy bible", which is supposed to be the foundation of Christianity!
Ok, I have finished venting my anger. Back to my question: Can the bible withstand public scrutiny? You be the judge-- objectively and honestly. Dear ladies out there, I hope you can really say something, this is about you and I said this before, please defend your conscience, not the book!
11 comments:
wat a coincidence..haha..i blogged mine bcuz of my observation in uni..
anyone..i've no feel about this..i'm a happy girl/lady/woman/ahmu. hahaha..i never feel inequality..even if there's, i will just get wat i want. I consider everyone as an individual in pursuing things they want in life. Physically and mentally, of cuz undeniable, that makes the difference.
ya, you're indeed lucky to be born in this century, not the dark ages when woman used to be just an asset of a man.
So do I, the more I read the bible, the more I feel fortunate that I'm not living in those "horrible eras". But I'm saddened sometimes when many ppl today are still not aware that many values taught in the bible are totally biased and they are still using those values to condemn/judge ppl in minorities.
Though I'm neither a woman, a handicapped, nor a slave, I feel that given my knowledge in the bible, I should really be doing something to spread the awareness. And writing about it, no matter how small the influence is, will hopefully spread this knowledge and awareness and stop ppl from continue using those biased values to condemn certain minorities.
After all, that's all I can contribute, for now. Hopefully all the ppl can be freed from the mind prison one day and we can live in a world free from bigotry and undue discrimination.
I have always like the great quote from Spiderman: "Great power comes great responsibility." The more fortunate I am, the more things I should be doing to contribute back to the society.
i understand your stand.. but just take the good and ignore the bad la. u're making it sounds like all christians are crooks lol...
ps: and we're not supposed to condemn anyone no matter how sinful they are but to accept them and try to bring them out from the dark side of the force. and those 'extreme values' u mentioned, i think hardly been practised nowadays la since everyone is well educated and have proper judging ability.
anyway i respect all types of religious stand here.
ps:my very personal view la. im a christian but i dont discriminate widow or slave or wad la lol..
i'm wondering, if you say you're a christian, aren't you supposed to form your judgement or opinion based on what bible has to say? If not, what's the point of being a christian? You can be a buddhist, a taoist, or even an agnostic if you think that the bible is wrong and you don't want to follow those values. I'm not trying to encourage you to become one of the above, my point is, it's meaningless to say that you're a christian when you think that its very foundation, which is the bible is wrong.
Another point is, last time you made a distinction between a religion and a believer. All the while in this blog, I've been trying to make my distinction very clear. What I'm criticizing is "the religion", and I always see the believer as somewhat innocent, because believer=follower, they just follow what their religion tells them, so I would say what's wrong here is the "religion" or "foundation of the religion--the bible".
Having said so, believers cant totally shed off their responsibility too. Believers are given the ability to think and make sound judgement, yet they choose not to exercise that ability and believe in whatever the religion tells them, that to me, is also an irresponsible behaviour.
oh ya, you mention another thing about "accepting them and bring them out of the dark side of the force". Well, I agree with you on general, but when you come to think about it, you'll have to decide which side you're on, and how do you make that judgement? Based on the bible? bible says slavery is ok, discrimination against women, handicapped, widow is ok, homosexuality is a sin, so when you're against slavery, against discrimination towards woman,handicapped, widows and gays, are you on the wrong side (or "dark side of the force")?
tat's what makes us hold the different view on the book ma.. take slavery for example, god say ok since u wan to have slave, go ahead, but u will suffer in the end. lol..
"take the good, ignore the bad" is wad i hope those non-christians receive la, cause when i read bible, i feel it makes sense, feel the meaning behind it. but since u take it so literally that the verse may sound so extreme, hmm so i understand your anxiety... maybe from ur view u think that's just speculation and not literally wad the book means. and your perception is based on the judging system that take human as the center of everything, in which sound like god exists for us, that we shouldnt suffer pain or die caused by natural disaster(act of god).
and my friend, religion esp this one, is like a set of very strict rules. but whether to abide it is up to the believers own decision, but then everyone would be judged in their afterlife. give u some speculations again lol, ppl tend to live up to a few hundreds year last time, maybe like 200yrs old for mr paul's era.. so 60yrs old for them mb equivalent to our 30yrs old.. tat's our definition for young??
it preaches 'stone-aged' values, because it's written during the stone age man.. LOL
actually, i'm writing from an ex-christian perspective. I write everything about bible according to the assumptions of a christian, for eg: bible is the word of god, bible is totally true and should be one's guidance of life.
Now, if you ask me personally, of course I will tell you that bible is not the word of god, it's the word of man. It's the stone-aged human himself who say slavery is ok, discrimination towards minorities is ok. I myself do not know anything about god, but it's the bunch of stone-aged human who wrote about it and demanded the whole world to believe in them. And sadly, there are still many followers of those stone-aged human in the world today and are using those stone-aged values to condemn minorities.
In many places, it is not a problem as the stone-aged human followers are not a big group. But in countries like US and to a lesser extent Sg in recent years, those stone-aged human followers are actively using their stone-aged values to influence govt policies and lobby for their values to be practised by the society. That's what I'm worried and concerned about.
And yes im one of them lol.. but those values u mentioned that they try to use i think is right and just perhaps, if not i dont think gov will accept it man.. coz it's not the only religion around lol..
and yes they said slavery is ok, but then u'll have to pay for it since u guys wanted to have slaves badly, that makes him a fair god what. everything got its own consequence one la.
but in the end u should try to prove that god doesnt exist.. that's the strongest proof if u wan to 'wake' everyone up lol..
I don't know what do you mean by "pay for it", and how is it that "because you have to pay for it, so it is fair". It's true that slave was like a property that can be bought and sold, and so you think that buying and selling human without the human's consent is a good moral standard/command? And that coercing ppl into slavery is the right thing to do, because they "pay for it"? If that is the case, then a murderer should not be prosecuted (and is not immoral) if he "pays for it", a raper should not be prosecuted (and is not immoral) if he "pays for it", any crime can be rationalised as long as you "pay for it"?
I don't care if the slave gives his consent to be a slave to his master, but that is no longer called "slavery". Slavery involves coercion of a human, going against the human's will to force him into being a worker/servant.
In US, the stone-aged human followers used to argue that slavery is ok you know? And it took a war(Civil War) to end that immoral behaviour. And women used to be discriminated in US because bible says it's ok. And handicapped used to be not given voting rights. And the latest things those stone-aged human followers are lobbying for is opposing evolution to be taught in school and insisting that creationism to be taught, criminalise gays even though they don't do harm to anyone, anti-stem cell research even though it can saves thousands of lives, insisting that the public school shd pray every morning before lesson starts, insisting that 10 commandments shd be displayed in the public etc. Do you think these are "right things to do" in a multi-cultural and religion society like the US?
And actually the burden of proof lies in you. How can I proof something that doesn't exist? It's against logical reasoning. For eg: if someone claims an alien came to his house, issit logical for him to ask me to prove that "alient didnt go to his house"? If someone claims that there is a ghost in his house, issit logical for him to ask me prove that "there is no ghost in his house?" Logically, a person who claims that something exists should be the one who should prove its existence.
And I don't really intend to prove of disprove the existence of god. All I want ppl to know is that there might or might not be a god. If there is a god, then we don't know what can we say about him, maybe he's a loving god (but how come so many sufferings?), maybe he's an evil god, maybe he doesn't care about human and is having his own good time (then we can hardly say that he is loving too.), maybe there are two gods, one is evil and one is good? There are many many possibilities about him/them, if god(s) exist. And stone-aged human told us one version and demanded the whole world to believe in them. But in the first place, why should we believe in what they said? They have no better knowledge than us and they might be just too free and their imagination ran wild(since there's no entertainment in stone age)?
pay for it as in u'll be either punished or rewarded over what u did. Since u're given the will to do whatever what u like to do.
hmm.. u want ppl to know there might be or might not be a god. Sounds like u wanted ppl to get confused in their religion or atheism. lol.. becoz if i said ur existence is the proof of a god then i assume u might burst out laughing.. haha.. sigh anyway in the end it's a speculation also if u think this is stone-age ppl's imagination. i think mr bartmen as a historian also know that ancient ppl is very knowledgeable though they dont have a thing called 'science'
And maybe it's true that ancient ppl is too free and that's why they got more time to communicate with god. ok.. a same picture but to you maybe a different meaning. and it's also hard for me or u to say it's right or wrong. it can only be determined as logical or illogical.
as for the examples i dont wan to comment too much =.= this will take forever, as an ex-christian i suppose u also know whats our stand and why.
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