Positive Outcome From The City Harvest Church Saga

This is currently the hottest news in Singapore right now. It inspires lots of conversations, debates on what really happened and the consequence on it. I am contributing my portion in this article. Let me begin by stating clearly that I have no intention to speculate on what will happen to the affected pastor and his friends after the trial. This article is not about the court case but rather on how the response of the church members and the circulated YouTube sermons of the affected pastor can lead to positive result for Christianity as a whole.

Here are the few areas that I will explore on:

1. Mindless drone syndrome.
2. Asking for money without shame.
3. Helplessness of Poverty Gospel

Mindless drone syndrome.

I have mentioned this phrase in many of my articles as well as my ebook “10 Lies Of Religious Christianity”. What I mean is the phenomena where individuals who have been trapped, are incapable of thinking for themselves. They think what they were told to think and believe what they were told to believe.

This sounds like the practice of evil cults but the truth is, many religious churches have been trying to blackmail their members into such drones through their doom and gloom sermons sprinkled with lots of relevant Bible verses. Phases like, “you will answer to God”, “God is not pleased” and “judgement day will come” are among the common tactics used by religious preachers to instil fear into the hearts of their members in hope that they will become obedient sheep (mindless drones) to the church leaders.

Of course, most Christians are too intelligent to fall for such tricks. Most Christians have developed a clear separation between faith and facts. They may go to church every Sunday and listen to the rubbish (sermons) preached but once they set their feet out, they were transformed back into human beings living in the real world. They do not participate in missions and crusades. They respect people who do not share their faith. They may give some money to their church but they will never sell their houses and give all the proceeds to their church. They are sane. Only a small minority in every church really believe in those threats and fell for it.

In this saga, the responses from the church members to the arrest and subsequent charges to their beloved pastor show that this church has achieve great success in doing what its competitors have been trying to do.

Those members are convinced beyond doubt that their pastor is completely innocent regardless of evidence. They are so full of faith that they will not even entertain the slightest “what-ifs”. Based on their comments, it seems that they are determined to fight beside their beloved pastor at all cost.

The question here is on whether their confidence is justified. Some of them tried to share with us the reason of their dedication. All of them have the same theme. They were once living rotten lives. They went to this church. The great pastor ministered to them, showed them the love of God and raised them up to who they are now.

However, none of them ever question on how relevant are such testimonies to the charges of falsifying accounts faced by their pastor. Just because an individual has been inspiring and loving, it has no relation on whether he intentionally or unintentionally put in wrong words in the accounts book.

Can anyone find a better example on the mindless drone syndrome?

So how does this exposure benefit Christianity as a whole? I am hoping that this incident will shock the preachers from the belief that you must be an obedient sheep (Christian term for mindless drone) to be a Christian. The Bible tells us that we were made in the image of God. If God can be an independent thinker, why can’t we? Why would God give us the ability to think independently and then created churches to blackmail us into behaving like mindless drones?

This is the time for churches to reform their practice of exalting mindless obedience to the celebration of independent thinking. We are living in the real world and the real world does not follow the Bible. God gives us functional brains because he wants us to use them. The best way to please God is to use the things he gives us. In case somebody might wonder, obeying the preacher without question does not require the use of brains.

It is alright to do things because it is the right thing to do. We don’t need to stick bible verses to justify our actions.

Asking for money without shame

This happens to be the reason I left my first church. The way those pastors used manipulative tricks to squeeze money from the congregation has shown me that these are men without shame.

In this saga, YouTube videos showing the pastor asking for money have been circulated and widely criticised. Many attributed it to the “false teachings of prosperity gospel”. However, they seem to have ignored the fact that “Poverty Gospel” churches also used dirty tricks to ask for money.

My first church belongs to the “Poverty Gospel” camp and the pastors are no less shameless in demanding money from their members. I can still remember the phrase used. “God has provided us the money. It is in your pockets.” Implying that the money in our pockets rightfully belong to the church.

How does this help Christianity as a whole? Perhaps preachers will develop a sense of shame of demanding money from their church members. They will need to understand that their members worked hard in their real jobs to earn their money. They need it to support their families, pay bills and set aside for contingencies. The money does not belong to the church. Preachers should learn to respect that.

If preachers are in need of money, they should either do better jobs, get it from their God or do some other real work to get it. Not using their sermons to demand it from their members.

Helplessness of Poverty Gospel

I have mentioned the term “Poverty Gospel” earlier. Let me give you the meaning now. I created this term based of the relative frame of reference. A observer from Fraction A accuses those from Fraction B of preaching the prosperity gospel. What does he call his “gospel”? He has no name for it because his gospel is the true gospel.

Now, let us shift the frame of reference to the observer from Fraction B.

If he follows the same pattern of thought, he too will call his gospel the true gospel. He will call those in Faction A something gospel.

Poverty Gospel is only a name for the something gospel.

Let me give you the characteristics of this gospel. The common feature is the fear of the promise of health, wealth and any other things that can be proven objectively. They prefer to be safe in things that cannot be proven objectively like the “spiritual” and “treasures in heaven”. This way, they will not face the risk of being wrong.

Within this fraction, there are 2 sub-fractions, the moderates and the fundamentalists.

The moderates do not really hate prosperity. They are just uncomfortable for church and prosperity to be mixed together. As long as prosperity is preached outside the church and with no reference to Bible verses, they are fine.

In contrast, the fundamentalists are totally opposed to Christians living wealthy lives. Any form of comfort and luxury is sin to them.

How does this affect them? For many years, Poverty Gospel churches have been losing members to their Prosperity competitors. Now that the City Harverst Church, (which is from the Prosperity Fraction) is suffering from negative news, it will be an opportunity for them to take advantage on this situation to grab back their market share.

Have they succeeded? My bet is they won’t. At best they can slow down the decline on membership. People may still leave and it is very unlikely for the Prosperity Fraction to cross over to the poverty side. Can you guess why?

Christians are real people living in the real world. They have their dreams and aspirations. They want to live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives. They want to have things and do things without being constrained by the lack of money. They are also not perverts, meaning they do not delight in suffering from sickness and poverty.

The prosperity fraction has been successful because they treat their believers as real people. So, if the poverty fraction is really serious in surviving in this competitive world, they will have to meet the needs of their members who are real people living in the real world. Hiding behind outdated and impractical doctrines will not help. Neither does the excuse of “serving God” help. You are preaching to people not God.

Therefore, it is my hope that the poverty fraction will start to reform themselves to make themselves relevant to the people whom they expect to give them money.

The Magic Of Mathematics

Mathematics! What a demonic word is this? Mathematics means different things for different people.

To some people, it is something to be avoided at all cost. It means pain, suffering, confusion and pure torment. Maybe they think that hell is a place where its inhabitants are forced to solve mathematics problem every day for eternity where heaven is the place where all traces of mathematics is banned forever.

Many others treat is as a necessity of life. They may need it in their jobs or to pass their examinations. They treated in with “professional” respect, learn what they can with the intention to use it to advance their career to the next level.

A small minority like myself see it as pure magic. It begins from nothing. You draw some lines, curves and numbers. Put them into equations, move the components around and a whole new universe is created. This is what I called “magic”. In this article, I shall elaborate more on this phenomena call “mathematics”.

Mathematics begin when people learned how to count. I don’t know much about tribes but based on what I have learned, some tribes do not have words for numbers above a certain limit. For example, they may have words for number 1, 2 and 3 only. Number 4 onwards are classified as “many”. Based on this limited vocabulary, one can deduce that such tribe could not have planned far. As far as they have the word for the largest number.

They could not have done much engineering and will be disadvantaged at war. Imagine this, when you organise an attack on them, what you have to do is to send in say 50 soldiers to set up a camp. The next day, hide 20 of them and order the remaining 30 men to leave. The tribesmen would have interpreted it as many people came and many left. They could not tell the difference between 50 and 30. Neither could they work out that there are 20 men still hiding.

No civilisation could have existed without the knowledge of basic mathematics which involves counting and arithmetic. If any of them really existed, they would have been replaced by the process of natural selection in mathematics.

In short, any civilisation that managed to exist knows the value of mathematics. Many of them developed it independently and yet it is consistent regardless of the culture it comes from. This means that regardless of which part of the world you are from, the rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are all the same.

Mathematics is therefore absolute and independent of one’s culture, geography and history. This is the opposite of religion. All civilisations also created their religions which tell them how their world was created, what can or cannot be eaten, how to live their lives, fight their wars, what type of structures they have to build for their gods etc. However, all religions differ from one another and are dependent on the culture, geography and history that created them. Therefore, unlike mathematics, all religions are relative and non-absolutes.

What this means is mathematics is the anchor of stability in the midst of a changing universe. Through mathematics, we can be assured that there are absolutes in this universe that will not be changed and independent from changes in discoveries, technology breakthroughs and trends. In mathematics, we have the rights and wrongs clearly proven and defined. What was proven right will be right forever. It is the island of stability in the midst of chaos.

One may ask, “How about other branches of science?” The difference between mathematics and other sciences like physics, chemistry and biology is mathematics consists only of deduction and the manipulations of numbers. It does not depend on experiments or observations at natural processes. This means new discoveries have no impact on the established mathematical laws.

The above phenomenon is also a drawback for mathematics itself. Since it is independent from the natural processes in the world around us, it is useless by itself. All the equations and laws created from it are useless unless we can put meanings behind those variables. The only way to do it is to conduct experiments, observations and followed by precise measurements to produce raw data. Feed it in the equations and we will have working mathematics.

Then again, how accurate are those measurements from experiments and observations? This is where the problem lies. Whatever discovery we made based on the observations today may be proved false tomorrow because tomorrow we may have better instruments or new events. Science is in constant flux. What is true today may not be so tomorrow due to new discoveries.

However, I need to stress here is that the changing portion is in the raw data that comes from observations and not from the mathematical process. The mathematical laws, once proven true are true forever.

So much for the consistency.

What I find so fascinating about mathematics is, it is purely the product of the brain. It was conceived in our brains. The sketches and equations we see on papers and boards are merely the representations of it. When I study this subject, I don’t see numbers flying around. Instead I see the thought processes that transform one state to another in a series of logical steps. You don’t even need expensive equipment like particle colliders for that. Just a pencil and a few pieces of papers , the rest is up to your brain to create your own miracle.

Mathematics had brought me much joy when I was in my pre-university days. I was fascinated by it. When I saw my teacher transforming equations on the black boards, I was mesmerised. After the final answer was out, I wanted to stand up, clap and shout in joy but I never did that because I was afraid others might think I am crazy or something. When I repeat the same process on paper and successful in completing the steps, I felt like a wizard. I have created my own magic spell. Doing mathematical exercises is like practising my magic. I felt like I was god.

Unfortunately, my priority then was to secure a place in the university, not to appreciate any subject. When the time came, I got into engineering. In case you are wondering on why not mathematics, the answer is, it is purely out of practicality. How much can an mathematics and physics graduate earn compared to an engineer?

I was not born in a rich family. So money is a high priority to me. As I think back, I wonder what would have happened if I opted for physics and mathematics instead? I don’t know.

Another quality of mathematics is it is universal and consistent even among species.

Suppose we encounter an alien civilisation. How do we deal with the first contact? We cannot assume their norm as the same as ours. We think of oxygen and water as the necessities of life but it might be toxic to their biology. We can see lights within a certain band of wavelengths but they might see it in a separate band. Then we can see what they cannot and vice versa.

The only common ground we can establish is through mathematics. The fact that these aliens can create a civilisation shows that they know some mathematics. They should have the same laws on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. They should have the same value for pi and natural number e. They should know the meaning of prime numbers. All these can be used as the common ground to establish the first contact.

Enough of aliens. As we move forward, I believe we can progress at a faster rate if we can have a mathematician in every research team. The reason is because no other non mathematical faculties or departments in institutions of higher learning can teach all the mathematical topics to their students. They are bound to leave out certain topics that they think as irrelevant. Those irrelevant could become relevant in specific cases. It takes fully qualified mathematicians to identify that.

In having an in-house mathematicians we can have a higher chance of constructing mathematical models to analyse and confirm new discoveries. In fact, software companies and hedge funds have already begun to appreciate the importance of mathematicians in their teams. It is my hope that the rest of the economic sectors can do the same.

If you are a mathematics graduate or undergraduate reading this, I want to tell you that I am envious for being in the studies that I truly desire. However, I am not so envious of your economic prospects compared to your engineering counterparts. My wish is for the society at large to have better appreciation on our talents.

The Process Of Science

In the previous post, I have given a brief introduction of science. I have checked the meaning itself from the dictionary and find the definition of science to be totally appalling. Somehow, they have the idea that science is just organised knowledge. The truth is science is more than that. Just because someone can organise some kind of knowledge, it does not make it “science”. For example, it is possible to organise the knowledge of astrology but it is still not science.

The question here is what makes science, science? The answer lies in the process. In this article, I am going to explain this scientific process that separates science from superstition.

Here we go. The process of science can be divided into the following steps:

1. Identify a field/ phenomena to study and understand.
2. Deduce or guess possible hypothesis to it.
3. Conduct experiments and tests to verify the above hypothesis.
4. The hypothesis that is able to pass the test will be taken as the true explanation until proven otherwise from the above process.

The above is very brief and therefore I will explain further.

 

Identify a field/ phenomena to study and understand.

There is no limit on what science can study. It is up to personal preference or the necessity of the time. Here are some examples:

 

• Ancient civilisations devote resources to study hydrology and botany because they want to increase food production. As food productivity increased, they can support larger population, which in turn created more soldiers, artists, scientists and engineers which in turn make the civilisation stronger.

 

• During the early stage of the Industrial Revolution, a lot of accidents happened due to explosion of boilers. Efforts were made to study these phenomena which gave rise to the creation of thermodynamics.

 

• The study of medicine has always been important in all civilisations because no one likes to suffer from illness.

 

Apart from the above necessities, science was pursued out of pure interest. The most obvious example is astronomy. People have been staring at the night sky for generations wondering that is up there. It was only after some time that they conduct scientific study on it.

In short, there is no area of knowledge that we cannot apply scientific knowledge on it. This includes areas like astrology or God. How to do it? Let me show you some possible way.

In order to verify whether astrology can affect one’s luck, all you have to do is to gather the birthdates of all the lottery winners, tabulate them according to constellation at those dates and see if there is any “lucky” constellation.

If a believer is to argue that the luck component is month specific, then all we need to do is to group the winnings into various months. If the result of the study can show that there is a huge uneven proportion of winners in a certain month that were born under a certain constellation, then astrology is true.

The same can be done to the study on the affect of God. Gather a group of people with terminal illnesses and divide them into various subgroups. Each subgroup is to pray to a specific God. One of the subgroup is not to pray to anyone in order to serve as a control. If the result shows that a single subgroup has an excessive high rate of healing, then it is proof that the God it prays to is the true God or at least the most productive.

So, there is no area that science cannot be conducted on. The challenge is to determine the methods.

 

Deduce or guess possible hypothesis to it.

There are 2 ways to this:

1. Deduce the most logical and simple hypothesis.
2. Guesswork.

It is obvious that the first option is the preferred one. Everything else being equal, the hypothesis that is the most logical and simple will be preferred as the answer. It is only when the above does not work, will we result to guesswork and test it.

This is why the God Hypothesis will never be considered as an acceptable answer. In science, we use the known to explain the unknown. We do not use the greater unknown to explain the relatively lesser unknowns. The God Hypothesis is the greatest unknown ever existed in human history.  This means it is unfit to be use as an explanation.

This is something that religious fanatics cannot understand. In their minds “God did it” is the only answer. If all of us think the same, then there is no science because “God did it” can be literally used to explain everything.

We do acknowledge that there are many things that science cannot answer. Some of them might never be answered at all. However, that does not mean we must adopt the God Hypothesis for all the questions that we cannot answer. That is foolish, irresponsible, lazy and disrespectful to God. This is like telling God, “God I am putting you as the solution because I don’t know the real answer. After I find out what the real answer is, I will throw you out.” The God Hypothesis is pure blasphemy to both God and science.

Let me move on to guesswork. There is nothing wrong with guessing in science. In fact, many scientific breakthrough happen because there were scientists who guessed the answers which later found to be true. This is where the creative part comes it. Being creative and the ability to think out of the box are a part of the qualities to be scientists but this does not exclude vigorous testing.

 

Conduct experiments and tests to verify the above hypothesis.

This is the hard work part of science. Just because one can cook up an explanation, it must not be taken as true until tested. There are ways to test hypothesis. The best is through experiments where we create setups for the phenomena and measure the results. If experiments are not possible, then we will need to gather data and do statistical study.

The above studies will tell us one of the following:

1. The hypothesis is completely true.
2. The hypothesis is completely false.
3. The hypothesis is true if conducted only under specific circumstances.
4. Only a portion of hypothesis is true.

The first 2 possibilities are clear cut. It is either true or false. The next 2 are the ones that makes science interesting. When to do experiments and study the statistics, we will not only get the true or false result, we gather new information which can help us to enhance our understanding and thus add to our initial hypothesis. Not only that we can create new field of knowledge out of it. The Theory Of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics were discovered this way. These 2 fields are what I call “common sense unfriendly”. They were discovered from experiments that did not yield the expected results.

Experiments and statistical studies can add to our knowledge.

The main weakness to this step is, we may not have access to the complete data. As I explained earlier, we humans were never fully equipped to be scientists. Our senses are pitifully limited compared to what is available in the universe around us. As our technology improves we will gather more data that we could not get before. Some of these new data may even prove that the answers we got in the past as false. When it happens, we will have to revise those theories and form new ones.

Being a scientist demands the ability to reject earlier “proven” theories if the current data proves otherwise. This is the characteristic that separates science and religion. Science is not ashamed of changing minds and beliefs. In science, being a heretic and blaspheme against earlier proven theories are healthy practices as long as one can produce sufficient evidence to support this heresy. No religion can do this.

This tells us that science and religion are at the opposite end of the logic spectrum. Does it mean no one can do both? The answer is, many have done both and the way to do it is adopt the discipline to separate both.  When you are in your religious mode, you are free to believe in the things in it like making the world in 6 days, talking snake, dinosaurs in Noah’s Ark, walking on water and other miracles but when you are out of in and step into the real world where science is the way of progress.

 

The hypothesis that is able to pass the test will be taken as the true explanation until proven otherwise from the above process.

This is the part where the scientists publish the results to be verified by their peers. If the results are significant enough, the results may even in incorporated into textbooks.

As explained earlier, just because a certain theory is verified as true, it does not mean that it will always be true. Future data may prove otherwise. Science is a dynamic process. It exalts us from mere surviving into progress, teaches us to be open minded and most importantly makes us truly civilised.

The Power Of Science

If I am allowed to use a single word to separate humanity from the rest of living things on earth, I can only think of “science”.  Through our understanding in science, we have risen beyond survival centred living into progress centred living. In other words, we no longer live our lives in trying not to die but to achieve the next level of progress.

 

Definition Of Science

What exactly is science?

This is what the dictionary says:

sci·ence  [sahy-uhns] Show IPA

noun

1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3. any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4. systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.

Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/science?s=t

 

In my opinion, the above definition is totally meaningless. Let me give you a better definition of science:

Science involves the following steps:

1. Identify an observed event.
2. Guess possible explanations to this event.
3. Conduct experiments and tests to eliminate those explanations.
4. The one explanation that remains, no matter how improbable will be accepted as the true answer until further contradicting data comes along.

 

Through the above procedures, our species had not only gained knowledge on what have been going on around us, we progressed to make use of this knowledge to elevate ourselves to the next level. Not only that we managed to eliminate many false ideas which we call “superstitions”.

 

Science As An Antidote For Superstition

We no longer live in fear each time we encounter an eclipse of the moon or sun. Eclipse is nothing more than shadows. There are no “sky-dogs” up there in the heavens wanting to eat up our sun and moon. We do not have to worry of getting strike by lightning if we do not follow some religious routines because we not only know how lightning works, we know how to control its powers. So if lightning is a manifestation of the judgement of God, then we have overcome this judgement by installing some lightning rods and copper tapes on our buildings.

 

When earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods or any other natural disaster happens, we know they are the result of the law of physics. They were not caused by the “Judgement Of God” as some con artists claimed to be in order to scare the public into giving them money.

 

In short, our knowledge gained through science has set us free from the bondage of stupidity and superstition.

 

Here is a disclaimer. I do realise that there are still con artists out there who had successfully made a living by proclaiming the “Judgement Of God” after every disaster. The only reason this can happen is their victims did not pay attention in their science class. So, the moral of this story is, a scientific illiterate and his money are soon parted.

 

Limitations Of Common Sense In Science

Many people have this misconception that science is common sense. The truth is, such belief was true in the beginning of scientific pursuit. Earlier disciplines like classical mechanics, wave theory and thermodynamics are very common sense friendly.

We can throw up an object, drop it from height and slide it on a smooth surface to see Newton’s Laws at work. Ancient armies had been using it to hurl stones to their enemies’ fortifications even before they could fully understand the law behind it.

 

Drop a pebble into a pond of still water and you can see the wave theory come to life. Thermodynamics can be seen in the kitchen when the cooking process is in progress.

 

In short, the above are clear and easy to understand. Then, we discovered electricity and magnetism. At first, we thought of them as separate phenomena but we have learned that they come together. So, we call the combined entity as electromagnetism.

 

While electromagnetism may give us the “magical” feeling, it is entirely scientific because it is predictable and controllable. We can switch on and off our electricity supply, control its properties and even use it to perform logical functions, which had given rise to the invention of electronic computers. We know electromagnetism is true even though we cannot understand it as well as we understood the Newtonian Laws of Motion because experiments, tests and applications had confirmed on what we know.

 

This is the part where we begin to rely on the discipline of science to identify the truth even if  we could not fully understand it.

 

Then, as if the world is not strange enough, we stumbled on even stranger truths in relativity and quantum mechanics which totally defy our common sense.

 

Why is that so? The above disciplines had revealed knowledge of the world beyond the world we live in (which consists of billions of atoms and moving at speed that very small compared to the speed of light) to the extremes like the world of very small, very fast etc.

 

In the world of the extremes, things work very differently from what we think as “normal”.

 

Here is an example.

 

We live in the world where what goes up must come down and water makes us wet. We take for granted of the water “wetness” and focus more on gravity because it gives us more problems.  However, if we are as small as the ants, things become reverse.

 

If you are as small as an ant, gravity is not much of a problem. The main problem is the surface tension of the water. At this size, water droplets will appear like a huge boulder in the middle of the road. If you do not careful, you might walk into the “boulder” of water and get drowned. On the positive note, you don’t need cups or buckets either. You can literally hold a sphere of water in your hands.  Instead of wiping your wet floor, you simply pick up the balls of water on your floor.

 

However, if you are to shrink even smaller into the subatomic level, the world is even stranger. You are no longer limited to a single space at a given time.  You can be present at more than one location at the same time. No one, including you yourself can identify your own location. Instead, you can only define the region of space where there is a high probability of you being there.

 

If you know where you are, you don’t know how fast you walk. If you know how fast you walk, you don’t know where you are. If you stand still, a huge cloud will surround you where you can be anywhere inside the “cloud”.

 

This is the world of very small. What happens when you move very fast until you are close to the speed of light? You will experience time dilation. Time flows slower for you than the rest of the world.  If you look out, you may think that the rest of the people are moving in a fast forward manner while they may see you as moving in slow motion.

 

It is important to note that the above ”strangeness” are strange only because they are not common in the world we live in. If we have been living in the substomic scale or have the facilities to travel at close to speed of light, then they are normal to us.

 

Our brains were evolved to find ways to survive. Not to understand the universe. Our diversion into science is more of a side track from the “purpose” of our existence.

 

Here is another fact. We like to think our senses as powerful but from the cosmic scales they are extremely limited. For example, our eyes are definitely better than nothing but they can only detect a very narrow range of electromagnetic waves (which we call “visible light”) that exist in this universe. We cannot see electromagnetic waves with higher and lower frequencies of this range like infra-red, radiowaves, gamma rays, X-rays etc.

 

This tells us that we humans are not adequately “equipped” to be scientists. Our brains and sensors are too primitive for that. Yet we did not give up and made great progress in understanding the universe. What we lack in our sensors, we use artificial sensors to “see” what we cannot see. What we lack in our brains’ imaginary function, we use mathematics to make up for it.

 

In conclusion, the enterprise of science has elevated us beyond our natural limitation. We are no longer subjected to the limitations imposed by our genes. If the Creator has a purpose for our existence, we must have exceeded it.

 

Suppose there is a God up there. What will he think? It depends. If God is an insecure, obsessed with self-glory and low self-esteem person, he must be feeling threatened by our progress. It is only a matter of time when he will want to sabotage our Tower Of Babel.

 

However, if he is an honourable, moral and with healthy self-esteem, I suspect he will applaud our achievements.

Nation X: Author’s Commentary On Pleasure Centre

In my Nation X series, I told of the genetically enhanced humans enslaving the ordinary humans by getting them to be addicted to the pleasure stimulated in their brains with a machine. While most of it is fiction, the concept of pleasure centre in the brains is a scientific fact.

It was discovered in the 1950s by two brain researchers named James Olds and Peter Milner. They identified the part of the rodent’s brains that give them pleasure and experimented on them by inserting electrodes into the pleasure centre. When currents pass through the electrodes, the rodents were supposed to feel happy. How did they know?

The researchers made a switch for the rodents to have full control on the electrical flow. The moment they pressed the switch, small electrical pulses flowed into their brains. The result: These animals did nothing other than pressing the switch. They totally ignored food, drink and female rodents. They ended up died of thirst and starvation. Such is the danger of pleasure.

However, the human brains are different. We do not have a specific area in our brains for the pleasure centres. Our pleasure centres are scattered throughout the brain. What do you think will happen if we manage to find a way to activate them artificially? We may end up like the rodents.

Joy Machine.

Now, let us suppose the feeling of joy can be duplicated. Think about it. What do you like to do? When you do that thing, you will cause electrical pulses to flow through the pleasure centres in your brain. You will feel happy and want to do it more often.

Suppose there is a machine that can store those pulses and duplicate them to your brains. What will happen then? You will not need to do that thing to be happy. All you have to do is to press the button and you will be as happy as you have done that thing.

The implication of the invention of such a machine will be disastrous. Our drive and enthusiasm for progress are caused by our joy of achieving them. If this joy can be achieved from pressing a button, then all our drives and enthusiasm for progress is gone. Once addicted to the artificial joy, we may not even have the will power to take a break to eat and drink. We will be dead within days.

Therefore, I conclude that if such a joy machine ever got invented, it will be the last invention of the human civilisation.

If you happen to have ideas of this machine, the best thing you can do is forget all about it and destroy all records of it. If you know someone who has made progress on it, you have to stop it. The survival of the human civilisation is dependent on you.

Tool of subjugation.

In the story, the X-sers used it to enslave the rest of humanity. Theoretically it can work. If I have this machine, I will set it on you for a few hours to let you experience pure joy. Then I switch it off and let you get back to normal. You would have withdrawal syndrome and you will do anything to feel the joy. I would have enslaved the whole world.

However, what is there to stop me from setting the machine on myself? In the end I will be as addicted as you. I will no longer be your master. We are just fellow slaves.

Therefore, the only way the joy machine can be used as a tool of subjugation is when it is used by beings with a completely different biology from us. In other words, aliens.

Conclusion

The pleasure centre of the brains is real. The addiction to it is also real. Only the joy machine is not. Let us pray that it will never exist.

Nation X: World Domination

Welcome back to the lecture on the history of Nation X. As I have said in earlier lectures, the Nation X marks an important jump in our civilisation. It was the beginning of our transition from savages to true intelligent beings. Through it, humanity was transformed from being the product of evolution to the creation of intelligent design like us. Look around yourselves now. We are what we are today, not because of random forces of evolution but because we were specifically designed by our respective genetic engineers to fulfil specific roles. This is the mark of true civilisation.

In the previous session, we went through the archive recordings of the natural humans at the time Nation X was taking over the planet. Don’t be distressed because you cannot fully understand their meanings. Even the best humanogist cannot fully understand them either. Your assignment is to write a paper on the effect of the transition to the society of the natural humans.

Let us begin the actual course.

When the X-sers decided to take over the control of Earth, they knew they could not succeed through violence. First, they were greatly outnumbered. Secondly, the natural humans had control over a vast amount of nuclear weapons. In those days, the term “nuclear” was restricted to the fission, splitting of heavy atoms. The technology was primitive but extremely destructive. The X-sers knew they had no chance of surviving a full scale nuclear explosion.

Instead, their war plan was to exploit the greatest weakness of the brains of the natural humans, pleasure.

Natural humans are very diverse. They differ in their beliefs, preferences and interests. However, no matter how diverse they are, all their beliefs and actions were focused on bring joy to them. They have many words for it like “joy”, “pleasure”, “happiness”, enlightenment” and many other but the mechanism is still the same. It is the event of having electrical impulses to stimulate a part of their brain called the “pleasure center”.

The X-sers knew about it but they did not have the technology to create the impulse from huge distances. Then they discovered the principle of quantum connectivity which can be used to scan the frequencies of primitive brains and be adjusted to deliver sonic waves to stimulate the pleasure centres of the natural humans.

They started to build relay stations throughout the earth using their agents. When the system was ready, the begun to scan the brainwaves. Then they activated the waves designed to the scan. The natural humans were infected and felt extreme joy. Throughout their lives, they made plans, sacrifices and dream of happiness. On that day, they received the very thing they could only dream of, joy.

The X-ser made their message clear. They would switch on the pleasure waves for one hour a day if the subjects agreed to obey their instructions. Those who refused would be excluded from the effects because the X-sers could easily exclude those individuals’ brain waves from the pleasure waves. As a result, the X-sers gain the control of the entire planet’s wealth.

Meanwhile, the natural humans continued with their lives in a more simplified manner. They worked on their given roles willingly. They had no other desire than to enjoy the daily exposure to the pleasure waves. In other words, they got out of the way and allowed the X-sers to develop Earth.

Thus, Earth became a truly civilised planet. From there, the X-sers progressed to space travel, colonise the moon, Mars and the Asteroid Belt. The success in dominating Earth also allowed the X-sers to experiment with animal and synthetic genes for the development of the subsequent generation.

If you are to examine your genetic codes, you will find that the original human genes can rarely consist of more than 2% of the entire genes. So, why do we call ourselves “humans” since we only inherit less than 2% of their genes? The answer is, we do that because our true inheritance from them is not their genes but their quest for self improvements. If the early humans had no desire to improve and progress in life, Nation X would not have existed. Without Nation X, we will not be here today participating in a history course in a space station orbiting Jupiter.

We owe our existence to the natural humans. We inherit their progressive spirit. This is the most important thing I want you to remember from this course.

In order to let understand more, we will organise a field trip to visit the natural humans.

In 2 weeks time, Jupiter and Earth will be aligned at the same line from the sun. This means travel between these 2 planets will cost the least at that time. We will make our trip by next week.

Please read the instructions transmitted into your chips on the preparation needed. You are to follow the protocol strictly especially when communicating with the natural humans. Those who are caught offending the natural humans will be punished. You are to memorise all the rules of communication.

We realise that some of you are not designed to live on Earth. The strong gravitational pull and the highly corrosive oxygen gas of Earth are fatal of those who are designed to live in vacuum. If you happen to be one, please consult your environmental suit specialist and get yourself proper protection. The timetable of the trip is included in the transmission.

My Economic Policy: Subsidyless Nation

I am taking a shot at formulating my own national policy. In this post I plan to eliminate the subsidy system as we know it. Let me begin by giving my definition of subsidy.

Definition of subsidy: Forcing A to bear the partial expense incurred by B.

 

Based on the above definition, some subsidies like the HDB subsidy is not counted as one. Other than that subsidy is inherently unjust. I propose to eliminate most of it and residents are to pay the full cost of government services. In addition, I propose some measures to ensure the cost of living to be affordable to the citizens like negative income tax.

Of course, the above policy does not cover all of the government’s functions. There are functions cannot be so easily priced like the role of police, army, fire fighters, judges etc. These roles are to remain as usual but services with direct usage like healthcare and education needs to be reformed by charging full cost to the users.

Does this make us a less caring society? The answer is “no”. A truly caring society is a society where people help the less fortunate voluntarily, not by force. The policy of subsidising the poor is achieved by forcing to rich to help the poor. This does not make the rich to be more caring. Likewise, for the policy of subsidised healthcare. It is achieved by forcing the healthy to pay for the medical expenses of the sick.

Let us take healthcare as an example. Is it just to force people who do not go to the hospital to pay a part of the cost of those who do? Some may argue that any one of us have the chance of getting hit by a car or being diagnosed with some cancer. So, it should be the benefit for all of us. I agree on that but there are also many diseases that are linked to lifestyles.

For example, those who live a sexually active lifestyle will have a higher risk of being infected with sexually transmitted disease. I have no objection to the man’s choice of such a lifestyle but he should also respect my freedom in not wanting to contribute to his medical funds should he be infected with those disease. The same can be said for those who maintain a healthy lifestyle and don’t eat meat. They should not be forced to pay for the medical expenses of those who do not care for their health.

So, my plan is to create a system where individuals pay the full cost for the services used with some exceptions (like the police etc) and government funded charity should be kept to the minimum.

This does not mean I am not aware of the high medical expenses should the unexpected happens. How should we deal with this? The answer is in the promotion of cost effective healthcare insurance. When I say that, I am referring to the insurance that people have the choice on whether they want to take. It should not be forced. In order to ensure the plan to be affordable, premium should be made as low as humanly possible.

In order to do that, I propose the following steps:
1. Liberalise the entry requirement for insurance companies in order to create more competition.
2. Allow the public to buy insurance directly from the companies to eliminate commissions.
3. Allow limitations to the insurance plans to reduce premium.

In the first point, the only legislation we need is to ensure those insurers to pay up when it is time to do so. Other than that, there should be minimum barrier of entry. A more competitive market will ensure the lowest insurance cost.

In the second point, commissions form a significant portion of the insurance premium. If the public can get their insurance directly from the insurance companies, then they can save the commissions. What about those who need advice on what to buy? They can seek insurance professionals to advise them for a fee. Here is an example: Instead of paying $100 in commissions, the public can save the money and pay $50 as advisory fee for a professional to advise them. It is still cheaper and better.

For the third point, one needs to understand that insurance companies make their profit in getting paid to take up risks. Each time a client gets admitted into the hospital, the company has to fork out a lot of money. So, if we can help them to reduce their risks, then it must lead to lower charges. Here is an example. Based on my current lifestyle, I know I will not get any sexually transmitted disease. I can tell my insurance company to exclude that from my health plan. This means if I ever get admitted to the hospital for sexually transmitted disease, the insurance company have my permission in not paying a single cent. This will reduce their risk. In return I expect them to reduce my premium accordingly.

So much for insurance.

I am also aware that there are many poor people who cannot make ends meet. How can they survive if they have to pay full costs of everything? The answer is in the implementation of negative income tax. This means the government will use tax-payers money to top up the cash income of the low income earners to enable them to live decent lives.

I propose 2 categories of recipients for the top-up:
1. Disabled
2. Able bodied.

Those in Group 1 will receive their cash top-up of up to $1,000 per month with no other conditions. This should be the minimum charity at the government’s expense. The potential for abuse is low because it is very unlikely for anyone to chop off their legs for the $1,000.

Those in Group 2 will be different. In order to qualify to receive the top-up, the recipients must be answerable to their assigned career coaches. The career coach’s job is to help the recipients to move to the higher salary bracket. The coaches will identify the obstacles and recommend steps for the recipients to follow. For example, if the problem is the lack of education, the coach will recommend the recipient to take up night classes. The expense of his class will be paid fully by the recipient using the money from the top-up. The government will not spend a single cent more on them.

Should the coach find the recipient to be not cooperative or have no intention to improve, then he will recommend the top-up to be cancelled. The public should realise that the cash top-up is meant to help the poor to be rich. It is not meant for them to stay poor. Tax-payers’ money should not be wasted on those who have no intention to improve.

That is all for now. I will discuss the education plan in my next post.

Nation X: The Last Tycoon

At last, the end is here. Or is it the beginning? I am not really sure myself. Am I supposed to be bitter because I was betrayed by my benefactors? Yet, I have no negative feelings towards them. Maybe it is the result of those joy waves.

Whatever it is, I think I have gotten the best deal in life. As of now I am 143 years old. Yet, my appearance and body cells are like those in their 20 plus, thanks to the rejuvenation technology from my benefactors turned masters. I have lived a long prosperous life. I withheld nothing my heart’s desires may it be women, drugs or delicacies of any kind. So, I should have no regrets of facing the end. The problem is, I am happier now.

Let me begin with my story.

I started off as a small time smuggler. I was involved in almost everything illegal. Drugs, technology, weapons or anything else that people are willing to pay for.

One day, I read about a Third World Nation that had opened its doors to stem cell research companies out of desperation for more money. Almost instantly it became a pariah state to the international community. I saw an opportunity to make lots of money by helping them in the procurement of needed supplies.

At first, I did not earn much from them but I saw the potential. The events that unfolded after that had proven me right. I hit the jackpot. As the nation grew in wealth, so did I. Being the pioneer has its privileges. The formerly pariah state has become the star of the business community. Everybody wanted to do business with it. As the country’s “best friend”, I naturally become everyone’s preferred business partner. All I have to do is to maintain relationship with my clients and money keeps flowing in.

Not only that I get to benefit from their advanced medical treatment. These folks are extreme genius. The can create any organs. Throughout my life, many of my organs had failed. If not for their replacements, I would have died a long time ago. I owed them my life. This is also the same technology that enabled them to secure the support from the rich and powerful throughout the world. After all, who can say no to living long and healthy lives? As the middleman, I made a lot of money from this.

One day, they decided to give me a new communication technology. All I know is, it is based on quantum connectivity and it can provide high density data transfer for a fraction of the cost we had at that time. So, I started to implement it and earn another mountain of gold while enjoying the fame of the second Edison.

Unbeknown to me, the system that I set up can be piggybacked to scan and record the brainwaves of the people around it. They used the data to create the right sound waves that can stimulate the pleasure centres in our brains. The rest is history. The waves they emit can produce tremendous joy to their targets. Those exposed by it will want for nothing other than to be exposed to it forever. I am one of them.

Let me make it clear here. I know what it is to enjoy life. I have enjoyed all the things that many people can only afford to fantasize of. Yet, none of them can be compared to what I felt under those waves. I don’t know how to describe it other than “pure joy”. In fact, this is my only craving – to have more of it. As for other hobbies like women, drugs and delicacies, they no longer have any attraction to me.

In this way, the entire humanity has been enslaved by our genetically enhanced counterparts. The strange thing is we enjoy it. All we have to do is to perform the task they set for us and obey the given laws. We will be rewarded with one hour of exposure to the pleasure waves per day.

Our entire society has changed. There are no longer any vices at all because we only crave for the wave. Drugs, alcohol, prostitution and all other crimes are gone. Somehow, they have the ability to exclude selected individuals from the wave when necessary. This means anyone who were caught disobeying the rules will be excluded. When the waves were turned on, these people will not be able to feel the joy like the rest of us. This is the worst punishment one can receive. As a result, for the first time in known history, we have a perfect law abiding community.

As for me, I was appointed as their chief administrator. In other words, a collaborator or a traitor. If I find anyone who does not obey my orders, I will just click the person’s unique brainwaves into the joy wave emitter. This person will be excluded from the next emission of joy wave. So, practically no one dares to disobey me. This is a boring job and as a reward I am entitled to double the duration of pleasure wave. The only unusual thing I have to do is to command selected people to procreate in order to avoid the extinction of the species.

So, why did they enslave us for? The answer is to keep us out of their way. They are not using us to mine uranium, plant corn or work in their factories. They have more efficient machines for that. All they want is for us to mind our own business . I guess this shall be our business for the rest of our lives, keep in line to enjoy the joy wave.

Nation X: The Last Pastor

At last, the event we have dreaded for more than a hundred years has finally come. The Soulless are no longer content in living their sinful lives in their lairs, they now want to dominate us, enslave us and turn us into their image. I am among a few hundreds of believers who had managed to escape to the mountains. We can have nothing but our faith to sustain us from this evil.

 

The purpose of this recording is to tell our story in the event we failed to hold up against our enemies in hope that we, the true Children of God will not be forgotten.

 

It began when a godless nation decided to give in to great evil by accommodating the works of stem cell researchers in its bid to be wealthy. The rulers allowed unlimited freedom to the commercial institutions to do what they want no matter how immoral.  While we do have not much detail on what they did within those walls, we can be certain that they tampered with the human cells and the DNA in them.

 

We reacted to this abomination by demanding the world governments to stop them by any means necessary including the use of force. Unsurprisingly, the so-called “leaders” back then were as soft as they are now. Poisoned by the idea of liberalism, they refused to take action even though they knew very well that this nation had allowed serious blasphemy by tampering into the forbidden things.

 

They were rewarded by Satan with great wealth and technological breakthrough. They discovered ways to prolong lives. As a result, this nation was courted by our corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen who lusted for long lives in order to continue to indulge in their sins. At this time, this nation had literally became untouchables. It was protected by the rich and powerful. The ordinary people could do nothing to stop them other than praying.

 

Not content with their lives in sin, they moved a step further by denying the way of life God has set. They eliminated reproduction through sexual intercourse. Instead, they made babies in the factories.  Babies were made by mixing DNA and install them into cells just like any man-made product. Are they humans? Do they have souls? Many prominent theologians doubted that. This was the reason we call them “Soulless”.

 

That was the beginning of a new generation of beings who do not know the meaning of love, family and most importantly God. They were made in factories as though they are nothing more than any other man made products.

 

They know nothing about love, family nor God. They do not even have the most primitive of religion. All they know is to excel in their chosen field.

 

We in turn joined forces with other faiths to demand their extermination. These things must not be allowed to live and pollute God’s earth. We failed to convince our leaders to do what is right because by this time, they had became totally addicted to the life prolonging treatment provided by the  Soulless. Instead, the rich and powerful joined up to oppress us to keep us under their control. Those of us who dared to speak up against the Soulless were arrested and tortured.

 

Our society begun to divide into 2 distinctive class. The upper class were rich and enjoyed artificially prolonged lives while the rest of us lived under their oppression and lived our own natural lifespan. Resentment began to grow. During those years, we learned to put aside our differences and joined forces against our oppressors. Just as we were about to overthrow our oppressors in our final uprising, the Soulless invaded us with the most unexpected weapon, joy.

 

We have known for a long time that God had designed a part of our brains as a pleasure centre. When stimulate, we feel joy. This is what we know from medical science. The Soulless went a step further by inventing machines that can stimulate our pleasure centres from huge distances. When they were turned on, they created intense pleasure to the people around them. Those of us who had experienced this will crave for more. They are willing to do anything to experience it again.

 

In this way, the Soulless has turned us to be their slaves. City by city, nation by nation, we the true children of God are giving up our freedom just to bask in the effects of those machines.

 

My congregation and I managed to escape to our present hideout before their arrival to our town. Based on the information we received from the airwaves, our town has been taken. All our friends, neighbours and family members that were left behind have been turned into addicts of their joy giving machines. We cannot even get near there without getting the effects ourselves.

 

Is this the end of humanity? This is the weapon we have never expected. They use their pleasure giving machines to turn us into obedient slaves. Those infected will lose all their will to fight back. The only craving they have is to have more of it.

 

There is nothing we can do but to turn to God. He is our only hope.

Nation X: A Brief Introduction To Natural Humans

In the last lecture, I presented the history of Nation X from the viewpoint of a natural human. As expected, most of you did not understand what it means. We need to understand that the system we live in today is totally different from what it was during the time natural humans dominated Earth. In fact, the greatest mistake any student of history can make is to regard the natural humans we have at the designated wildlife preserves on Earth as true representation of the natural humans during the time of Nation X.

Let me begin by giving you a brief introduction to what natural humans used to be. If you are interested in knowing more, I suggest you take up a full course in humanogy conducted by Professor DFT99-234.

If you are to visit the natural human settlements on Earth today, you will only see the tamed version of the species. Through centuries of artificial selections by the Wildlife Wardens, they have evolved to be very peaceful and docile. They are totally different from the version that dominated the planet prior to Nation X.

According to the studies of prominent humanogists, natural humans at that time were nothing more than savages with minimal intelligence. To give you a clear comparison, an average adult of their kind has the same level of intelligence as a 5 year old kid you see in the nursery next door. What they lack in intelligence, they made it up with intense appetite for violence. Their entire culture, from literature, music, arts to technological achievements flourished the most when they were at war among themselves.

So, it is easy to understand that the people of Nation X, whom we shall now call the “X-sers” were not really having a good time living on a planet dominated by those savages. The natural humans were suspicious of anything different and X-sers happened to fit the bill.

In the beginning, the X-sers managed to contain the hostility through the utilisation of their medical technology. Here is a brief biology lesson. As a product of evolution, the body of a natural human is full of flaws. If we are to look at it from the perspective of an intelligent designer, it is a bad product. The entire body is badly designed, the genetic codes contain lots of defects and all the organs are easily damaged. This is why natural humans have a very short lifespan.

What the X-ser offered was the technology to prolong the lives of their ruling class. This makes the X-sers in demand from the rich and powerful among the natural humans. Although the X-sers were still primitive based on our standard, they looked like miracles to the natural humans. They had the capability to prolong the life spans of their clients indefinitely through their expertise in stem cells manipulation. As a result, the ruling class would not authorise any attack nor harm to Nation X or they would become mortals again. This was how the X-sers ensured their survival among the savages.

However, this advantage did not last for long. Through the life prolonging sessions to the ruling class, over time the society of the natural humans had divided into 2 separate classes: the ruling class who literally lived forever and the rest of natural humans who continued with their short span lives. Conflicts grew between them. The X-sers were concerned that in the event the ruling class lost control over the population, they might be attacked by the angry mob.

This is one reason why the X-sers wanted to establish direct control over the planet. They wanted to take control over the planet before the mob of savages got to them.

The other reason was the X-sers reached the plateau in the genetic improvements. In order not to cause excessive mistrust among the natural humans, the X-sers only used human genes to design the subsequent generations. This was to ensure that they still looked humans. However, they reached the limit of what human genes could do within a century. They need more diverse genes either from other animals or purely artificial ones. The only way for them was to take full control over the natural humans first.

Finally, the motivation to take control of the planet came from the discovery of subspace communication. Through it, they learned that the galaxy is not so quiet after all. There is a whole forest of star faring races and many of them were hostile and exploitative. The only reason Earth was spared was because it was out of the way from the galactic trade routes. All it takes was one stray ship and Earth would be discovered and became one of the slave colonies. The X-sers believed that the only way to be ready is for them to take the lead to prepare humanity for such eventuality.

Some of you may wonder on why did we emphasize so much on this ancient civilisation.
Here is the answer.
We place Nation X as the core of our history because it marks the transition of our species from the natural to the synthetic. Another way of putting it is, we have moved from being a product of evolution into the result of intelligent design. Nation X marked the way for true civilisation.