The Philosophy of Weng: Fiction or Truth, Coming Soon

I have released the title of my next post.

Here I shall attempt to briefly explain the reason why I believe the Bible is without a doubt the word of God, the one and only truth. That it is not mere fiction or a collection of stories and sayings as the world falsely claims, but it is the living Word, with the power to transform lives, not because it preaches good philosophies to live by, but because it essentially condemns the sinfulness of man, the futility of trying to live a good life, and points to the one and only way, the one and only truth, the one and only life, that through Jesus Christ, that by His power in us, He not only forgives us of our past wrongs, but gives us power to live the present by His holy standards, and assurance of a future with Him in heaven.

This will be updated shortly. It's still currently being word processed. I don't want to make this overly shoddy yet I know it will be impossible to put forth every single argument, because I might as well attempt to write a book at that point, which I know will be an impossible task, what with the immense research and planning needed.

Instead, to a satisfying standard, I wish to highlight why I have such faith in the Bible, briefly explaining the evidence that has convinced me as such. And beyond the physical realm, I also wish to point out the supernatural power of the Bible, not like that of the movies where you show it to an evil spirit and it forces it to flee, but the power to take man from his depravity into the divinity of the Godhead. To live for what he was really created for.

I realise there might be many terms I use that are unfamiliar, as I seem to use a lot of Christian lingo here. But I'll do my utter best to couch it in terms that are familiar and explain that which is unfamiliar.

Be warned. This post is not one you should merely dismiss. And I'm dead serious on this. Because yet again I will reiterate this line: If you really believe that what you believe is really real, then you will indeed live by that belief no matter what..

And I really believe that my belief "that the Bible is the truth of God, the living Word", is really real, and as such I strive to live by it daily.

The Philosophy of Weng: The Basic Question

Firstly, the truest definition of philosophy, in my opinion:

Philosophy is "a scientific quest to discover ultimate reality".

The next question is of course: What is this 'ultimate reality'?

That's would be a hard question, unless we believe one thing. That reality is defined by what is true. And logically, ultimate reality will be defined by what is ultimate truth.

Now that's an interesting statement to wrap one's head around, isn't it?

Think about it for a minute. Does truth define reality? That what is really really real, and not an illusion disguised as reality, also truly truly true?

Assuming that you agree with that statement, and we equate truth with reality, then what do we equate truth with?

At this point, some of you may have recalled me writing a post about this sometime back. I'll post the link here, because there are many ideas there that will be reiterated and referred to, which I'll incorporate into this series of posts

What ought to be and what is

Take the time to read the above post. There are two things which I wish to emphasise. The first is of course the issue of "What is truth?", the answer to which is God Himself, as testified in the Bible. The second is the issue of how this view of truth has been distorted by the many worldly lies, the biggest one of which is that there is no God or that He is irrelevant, and as such has led to such a divergence of morality and ethics, that the world today is become ever more fallen in sin.

Now, following from that there will be several things which I'll have to try to address. The first is the authority of the Bible. As much of my argument will be taken from there, I will have to prove that the Bible is indeed the infallible Word of God. And trust me, I will.

The second is this notion of sin, which ties in to the larger topic of man, and his purpose in this world.

And I'll end with the basic question:

What is the purpose of life?

It is this basic question that I will start off with, and attempt to come back to in my conclusion. In the meantime continue to tell me what you would like to know about. And I will like to give credit to where credit is due.

A majority of the worldview I now possess I credit to The Truth Project, a DVD series regarding the biblical worldview, which has transformed the way I perceived life in general. In addition, I would also like to credit several books which I have read, and am reading along the way, the specific authors and titles of which I will mention as I bring up points in this series.

Finally, all of the credit ultimately goes to God and the transformational power of not only His word, but His very nature, who has given me whatever wisdom I possess in attempting to tackle all these issues.

What would you like to know?

I've been thinking about the direction of my series of posts.

Then I thought, is there anything in particular someone would like to know about?

Feel free to post your comments under here. If there are no comments, then I'll just press ahead with whatever plan I come up with.

The Philosophy of Weng

I'm back after a long hiatus. And I think I'm ready to embark on another series of posts.

This time, it's going to be about "The Philosophy of Weng".

So I thought, what better way to introduce this series than defining it? *surprise surprise*

There are many definitions of philosophy, but let me start by going back to the root word.

Philosophy is Greek in origin, coming from the two part of 'phil' meaning love and 'sophy' meaning wisdom. Thus combined it means love of wisdom. I'll leave it there at the moment.

Below are the definitions of philosophy, as I got them by typing in "dict philosophy" into my Firefox address bar.

1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
3. A system of thought based on or involving such inquiry: the philosophy of Hume.
4. The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
5. The disciplines presented in university curriculums of science and the liberal arts, except medicine, law, and theology.
6. The discipline comprising logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology.
7. A set of ideas or beliefs relating to a particular field or activity; an underlying theory: an original philosophy of advertising.
8. A system of values by which one lives: has an unusual philosophy of life.

All the above definitions have merit, and I'll come back often to visit them. Because our philosophy, whether we define it as such or not, is really our system of belief, and if you really believe that what you believe is really real, then well you're going to live it!

In my series, I will be doing numbers 2 and 4. With ONE exception. I will also investigate using empirical methods, which means that I WILL (attempt to) provide evidence.

Haha. So that's the introduction. I have yet to outline the direction of my series. So give me a few days, roughly two or three, to get that sorted, then check back here.

In the meantime I'll end with this passage from the Bible:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ"

Colossians 2:8

And yes, for those of you who are a bit uncertain at this point, this WILL be a Christian worldview. After all, it's the philosophy of Weng.

Lol.

Joy indeed

Well.

Informally accepted into Cambridge.

Woohoo.

2007 has started very well for me. And for that I'm extremely thankful.

Thankful for the mercies and blessings of God.

And well. Haha. That's all I can post right now. Cos right now, the joy of getting accepted is occupying whatever space that is left in my brain.

Passion: The wrap up

Almost. Not quite.

Anyways, here's what transpired in the longest journey back home.

For the sake of uniformity, I'll use the time at the venue at which I'm writing about. But I'll place Malaysian time in brackets.

Anyways, we were meant to leave Atlanta at Sunday 9.45pm (Monday 10.45am). Check-in took pretty long, what with the people admiring some colleagues engagement ring. Bleargh. Talk about inefficiency.

But the flight got delayed one hour, because of bad weather delaying the arrival of our pilots from Tampa. Not a good sign, given that we had two hours to catch a connecting flight, two hours now reduced to one hour, an hour within which to get our boarding passes.

Ahh. So we reach Vegas at Sunday 11.50 pm (Monday 2.50pm) and we have one hour to get to the next plane. They knew we arrived. And they didn't hold the dumb plane. So we missed it. Especially with inefficiently designed American airports and what not with their terminals scattered all over the place. Spent the night at Vegas. And managed to reschedule, to fly to, of all places, eastward towards New York, before catching a connecting flight to Seoul. Urgh.

So we left Monday 12.50pm (Tuesday 3.50am) and arrived at New York Monday 8.30pm (Tuesday 9.30am) Great. Wait 4 hours and board flight Tuesday 12.50am (Tuesday 1.50pm). Then fly 15 hours to Seoul. Thankfully this journey wasn't that long, considering I slept solidly for the first 8/9 hours of the plane ride.

So we get into Seoul at Wednesday 5.50am (Wednesday 4.50 am). Next flight was meant to be at Wednesday 4.50pm out of Seoul to Kuala Lumpur. But we managed to locate our luggage, which was going out on an earlier MAS flight. Brilliant. So we managed to persuade Delta to waive our penalty charge and get a seat on that plane to KL, leaving 11.50am. We got the tickets at 10.45am, and dashed for the gate. Lol.

And so we finally arrived back in KL at Wednesday 7.30pm, after stopping for an hour in Kota Kinabalu.

Boy. What a journey. 60 hours without a shower, without proper rest and without a proper meal. It is not fun to be stranded. What was meant to be a 36 hour journey, arriving home on Tuesday, at 2220, was delayed one day (well almost). *shudder*

Anyways, the stream is up on the passion site again at www.268generation.com for those who
want to view what it was like. It's up until Friday midnight. Lol. Only found out today. Ahh well. It's American time anyways I assume.

And as for the wrap up. It has been an amazing trip.

Yep.

Were you expecting some long summary?

Too tired to do that. Haha. There was just so much, you can only describe it as amazing.

Period.

Haha. I think my brains have partly turned to mush. Hopefully my school knowledge is still there somewhere. Lol.

Will be back in school tomorrow, after an extended holiday of nearly a week, taking my Christmas break to a month. Schoolwork should not be much of a problem

And it appears my Cambridge letter has arrived. Well, is meant to have arrived. I haven't got it yet. Eagerly waiting for that.

Until then, I shall be getting off this computer.

Passion: Chapter Six - Farewell America

Ahh. After 12 days in the US, we're finally leaving for Malaysia.

It's been a great 3 days. A family here took us in and they've been fantastic with the rooms and the food. Lol. Although I'll probably be happy to get back to some Malaysian food as well.

Anyways, my flight is at 2145 on the -4GMT time zone although with daylight savings in place it's -5GMT. I'll be reaching back on Tuesday at 2220, I think, Malaysian time.

Looking back at the trip, I thank God for His countless blessings. So much so that I've only spent my money on small meals and lots of CDs and books. LOTS of CDs and books. Lol. I think it was 82USD on CDs and 80USD on books. Ah well. Oh ya. And a T-shirt or two. Forgot about that.

Well. Next time I post should be back in KL. I'll be missing the first three days of my term, so fun fun fun. Haha.

That's all. But with me you know there's always another post just waiting round the corner.

Passion: Chapter Five - The Real Thing

Well. Passion is over. But it was nothing short of life changing for me.

I won't be able to post this from where I am so I'll have to wait till I get back before the full post can be scripted.

But in the meantime, did you know you can watch the main session being streamed live on the passion website?

Go to www.268generation.com and look for the link that brings you to the live stream. I'm not sure how much longer they will be up for as it is only temporary. But do enjoy them because I certainly did. And also, a bit of background.

Because of the fact that 24000 college students turned up, they had to rent another venue. Therefore the main session were jointly held in both the Phillips Arena and the Georgia World Convention Center Arena. The stream is that of what you see on the projection-like screens in the main venue.

I'll give full details of the conference as soon as I get back to Malaysia. The scale of it is just so immense that it's impossible to describe in a few short paragraphs. But the spirit of God was truly working among the 24000. You can check for updates at the passion site to be honest, but I'll post them up here soon enough.

Passion: Chapter Four - Goodbye Orlando

Well, it's Day Four. Went to Disney yesterday and realised what a novelty it was to cut to the front of every queue in Universal. Ah well. Anyways went on a few rides, namely splash mountain and space mountain for those who have been there before. Quite nice but not as great as the Universal rides.

Stayed over at Sean's place instead at night, cos Matt's grandma - well their whole family are out for a relative's wedding over New Year's Eve. Before that we went to another of matt's friends, Tom's place for dinner.

I think I've gained a few kilos here in America. blearghh.

Got back to Sean's place pretty late, eleven-ish. We enter the house and there's an American football party going on. Anyways something pretty comical happened, cutting short their party. As to not disclose any names, person A was browsing through the channels, while the football game was being recorded on Tivo. Now the thing about Tivo, for those who do not know, is that Tivo records and allows pausing and playing only as long as the channel is in use. Anyways person A accidentally clicks OK and switches the channel. The biggest party crash I've seen in a long long time.

Woke up today at 6. We went to some breakfast joint to get some American breakfast. Bleargh. Starting to feel really unhealthy. Anyways we left to go to Matt's church, which is pretty awesomely huge. HUGE. Met quite a few of his friends - was interesting to meet certain people. Saw one of his friends get baptised here. It was quite an experience, the service being different from the ones back home.

We then left for SeaWorld. The shows there are simply awesome. Saw the famous Shamu show, which was pretty breathtaking, saw one with two sealions performing and another musical with dolphins. The animals are trained to do pretty crazy and unbelievable stunts with their trainers. We also sat on another rollercoaster, namely the Kraken. Now for those of you who have been to Orlando and seen the Incredible Hulk in Islands of Adventure, this is just as awesome and even bigger in some places. It has the biggest drop to date on any rollercoaster I have ridden. Pretty crazy stuff.

Of course let's take this time to remember the rollercoaster incident back home. Malaysian rollercoaster quality seems quite shoddy at this time.

But yeah that makes it my sixth, I think, rollercoaster in 3 days. I think I must be getting quite accustomed to them, cos each one seems less terrifying than the previous. Of course, I'm getting pretty jetlagged as well, so it could be that I'm just way too tired. I find the latter more likely.

Anyways I'll be getting to bed now. First new year's I'll miss in a long time. But then I have to be up at 4am tmr. The bus leaves at 5.30 am sharp for Atlanta. So I need my sleep, real bad.