On Calvinism

I usually try my best to stay away from lengthy posts regarding theology or philosophy due to the lack of interest from most of my friends, but recently, with the rise of Calvinism in Malaysia and with the Cavlinist view being dominant in the youth of big churches, and also with a talk on Romans 9 coming up in my church in a few Sundays to come, perhaps I should start stating my position with clarity here. Simply put, I am not 5 point Calvinists like John Piper, Paul Washer, RC Sproul, Jon MacArthur and the like.

This post should be quite lengthy, and will be focused on arguing against two important points of a five-point Calvinist. Bear in mind that some (or most) of the arguments that I will be making here are not my brainchild, but from a few other people out there who has gladly answered many of my questions on this issue.

First, to define Calvinism.

Five point Calvinism, is basically in belief of 5-points in the acronym form of TULIP regarding the Christian faith. The five points are as followed:

Total depravity : Men have absolutely no way to be reconciled to God by their own means.

Unconditional election : God elects people to be saved not by any of their works or anything about them at all

Limited atonement: Christ did not die for all

Irresistable grace: The elect can never choose to deny Christ or his Grace

Preservation of the saints: Once saved, always saved.

Now, there are many out there who hold to only a few points of Calvinism (such as my quasi-theologian Uncle who's a 3-point Calvinist), but I'm mainly going to be dealing with the 5-pointers here. Namely those who believe in limited atonement and irresistable grace, the points which make God arbitrary and which nullify human freedom.

The main premise of the limited atonement(LA) Calvinists is this: Everything that God wills, will come to past. (I think this is their main premise). So since not everyone are Christians, then they conclude that God does not will everyone to be saved, and they find some scriptural support for doing so. LA's often quote all the scriptures that are thought to imply that Christ died for ALL, and say that our interpretation of scripture is wrong.

But before we get into scriptural interpretation, let me make some solid, purely logical arguments against LA Calvinism.

The Philosopher and most prominent public apologist to the lay people, Dr William Lane Craig, has often argued that Calvinism, which includes predestination would eventually lead to making God the author of sin. I agree.

Let's take the main LA premise here:

(1)Anything that comes to past is a result of God's will

(2)Adam's sin came to past (Original sin which probably led to total depravity)

(3)Therefore, God willed Adam to sin.

Now, hopefully the logic behind this is clear to the reader, since I probably suck at developing proper syllogism. But I think I'm right with this formulation.

So we see here that if this argument holds (which I definitely think it does), then if the LA's keep to their first premise, then it makes God the direct author of sin.

But if the LA denies the conclusion, he has to deny one of the premises leading to it. The LA can either deny (2) by saying that sin did not occur, which is obviously wrong. Or, deny their main premise, that anything that comes to past is a result of God's will. But if they do so, then it can be claimed that human beings have a sort of free will that would allow them to be morally responsible for what they do. And if they do so, we have one less reason to believe that God did not intend to die for all.

But what if they happily claim that God is the author of sin?

Well then we have another argument that we can make.

Most Christians would define sin as a deviation from God's will. Since since is an abomination to God, it definitely isn't something of him.

But if God willed sin to occur, then it means that God willed a deviation from his own will, which is of course, a contradiction!

Now the only way to overcome this contradiction is to say that Sin is not a deviation from God's will, but a part of His will. But if it is a part of His will, then what so wrong about Sin anyway? Why would God hate a part of himself?

Then it is obvious that the LA's main premise is absolutely false, and that it seems to me that God has given us free will enough to make us morally responsible for what we do.

If I am correct in my above two arguments, then I think I have shown that God cannot logically be a puppet master while still having the traditional Christian properties of God.

On to another objection...

Under five-point Calvinism, God chooses who to save, but also, there must be nothing that the individual does or is that affects God's decision.

What does that mean?

Say we have an individual called Rachel. Let's say that Rachel is one of God's elect, and then we have another individual, Sam, who is not one of God's elect. Now according to Calvinism itself, there is nothing that Rachel did or is that influences God's choice to elect her to heaven while condemning Sam to eternal hell. So according to Calvinism's main premise itself, there is nothing "special" of Sam or Rachel that determines their destinies. They are both exactly the same, it's just that somehow God saves Rachel and not Sam. Isn't this arbitrary? How can something like love be arbitrary? Can you love someone for absolutely no reason at all?

The Calvinists might have two objections under their sleeves:

1. Unconditional love

You hear this alot in the movies and from your parents sometimes. But unconditional love in the sense that the Calvinist God would use is far from what we think it is. When we speak of unconditional love, we often do not mean "absolutely no reason at all" like what the Calvinistic belief would entail God's love as, but we just mean that nothing the person that we love does can earn or lose our affection for them. Doesn't this suit the above picture? No it doesn't. Your parents love you because you are their children. IF and only if you were not their children, then they would not love you for that reason. But that won't save Calvinism since either (following the above examples)Either:

1)There is something about Rachel that Sam does not have that counted as a reason for God to love Rachel and condemn Sam. But then the Calvinists claims that the two of them are equally totally depraved, and hence they are equal in God's eye.

or

2)The reason why God loves Rachel is because she is God's creation. If so, then is Sam not God's creation?

The second way a Calvinist responds to this problem (and more commonly too), is too claim that God has "greater purposes" to be achieved when he elects someone. And that we cannot "know the will of God". But if he does have greater purposes to be fulfilled through Rachel and not Sam, doesn't that mean that there is something about Rachel that can fulfill his greater purpose and not Sam?

Calvinist objections

If my above arguments are correct, then a 5-point Calvinistic belief would be shown to be incoherent with Christianity and perhaps even illogical. But Calvinists often have their fair share objections against the non- 5 pointers.

Here are some of the few:

1. If Man can choose to follow God, then Salvation is dependent upon Man and the cross is useless

This objection misunderstands the non-C position. I don't think any form of arminianism or Calvinism would claim that Man are able to save themselves, but simply able to accept the gift of salvation or reject it.

Simply put, does a patient take credit for being cured when he merely accepts treatment from his doctor? If he does, he's a rather stupid patient!

2.Scripture maintains that God did not die for ALL.

So some scripture might contain verses that imply that Christ only died for his sheep, Israel and Paul. But the problem is that this "many" used in the scriptures can be used as a subset for "all". If we are to jump to the radical conclusion that these verses imply that Christ only died for the many, then why not jump to the conclusion that Christ only died for Paul since the Bible did have Paul saying that "Christ died for me".

And of course, there's the infamous Romans 9. You through John 3:16 or any other verses which imply unlimited atonement to them, they will simply say that you take those verses out of context and throw romans 9 back at you.

But given the logical consequences of Calvinism above, I contend that we should instead interpret Romans 9 differently from how the Calvinists want it to be. In fact, I think it's correct to believe that Romans 9 was not speaking of salvation but of something else. Here's a video from a member of an Eastern Orthodox Church clarifying this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs_4GwyJCHA&feature=related

But wait, we also do have verses speaking of unlimited atonement. I won't use John 3:16 here since the Calvinist would easily contend that the use of the word "world" could mean other things, but I'm going to be using Romans 5

¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.

So if the Calvinists contends that the "all" being used here does not mean literally "all", he would also have to claim that not "all" have received condemnation. But there's a "many" in the verse, what can it mean? This verse is not to say that ALL will be saved in the end, but that many people will be able to choose God and live. Since it's quite obvious that not everyone chose to receive his gift of grace.

I do not wish to delve any deeper into the scriptural arguments here since I am simply not qualified enough to do a proper exegesis or whatsoever. But I do contend that for Christianity to be the truth, it has to rational and reasonable. And if my arguments above succeed, then Christianity can only be the truth IF Calvinism in that sense is not a part of it.

BlackBerry day #1

So I've just gotten my new toy/utility tool, which is of course a replacement to my dead Nokia ; The Blackberry Torch 9810.

Now, there have been much debate between the iOS fans, the Android fans and the Berry fans about which OS is better. But I believe that this is all based on what one wishes to use their phone for.

Thinking that I would be more suited with a Berry because I would prefer a utility based device, I got it.

I'll be doing write-ups about my Blackberry to see if it really lives up to the standard of how some people want it to be and whether it is good enough to debunk myths by other fans.

The package

I bought the phone for about RM1.25k with a 2-year contract with DiGi. I subscribed to the BIS plan and a DG 68 smart plan.

That would mean that I'd have to pay RM 78 per month just on Data usages, but then again, going with Maxis would cost me RM90 per month solely on Data usages. Plus, DiGi allows me to use past my monthly quote (3GB), except having a massive speed cut though with no extra charges. While I'll be charged extra with Maxis (I think).

The packaging was good. Unlike my other phone boxes, this one was small despite being one of my bigger phones. Saves the trees! The box came with the phone itself, battery, charger, manual, USB cable, and a set of headphones. Of course including the 18-month warranty from Brightstar along with the manual.

As soon as I plugged the phone to my computer though, I quickly realized that a CD was not provided for the Blackberry Desktop software. Took me quite awhile to find a proper download mirror for the software, but it was no biggy.

I immediately bought a screen protector (a lousy one in fact, screws up my screen resolution, though it's good at keeping the stains away!) and a hard case by Seidio. (The case isn't that nice and the top portion seems to be Seidio's old design that prohibits a whole lot of scrolling on the trackpad)

First impressions

When I first got the phone, I wasn't all too surprised by the weight and the thickness of it simply because I've been using Nokia phones which were reasonably fat. So bulk and weight weren't a problem for me. The screen resolution was pretty good. I would compare this to the Retina display of my iPod touch 4g, but it's hard to make a fair comparison simply because my screen protector screws up the resolution. The keyboard, although small, is amazingly nice to type on. Sure, not as good as the Bold 9900's keyboard (yes, I've handled it before in the store and during the display show by DiGi), but it beats anything else that I've used (which includes Nokia's full QWERTY slide out keyboard on the N97 mini) and definitely better than any touchscreen keyboards. It has this nice feeling to it to make you feel that the keyboard has been pressed. I tried out the keyboard on my friends Curve, it's almost the same I think.

The OS, Blackberry OS 7 is rather decent for an OS. I like how it's not too simple yet simple enough to understand compared to the likes of my old Windows mobile 6.5 phone! It's smooth and fast. After trying out appworld though, I quickly understood why Android and iOS fanboys hated BB OS. The lack of apps is saddening. But with that being said, I do think that there's enough apps out there to get me going. Twitter and Facebook for BlackBerry is certainly not as easy to adapt as one would be able to on an iOS device, but it's good enough I guess.

BBM and being a social climber

Many people have claim to get a BB just for BBM. I never understood why when it seemed to be the same as something like whatsapp. BBM was still really good though, despite having little contacts, it was easy to contact other BBM users in groups or in solo while being able to know stuff about them if they're connected to Foursquare or etc. It's a tad more organized than Whatsapp if you ask me.

Battery life

Many have complained about how BB's have lost their good reputation for their good battery life with the release of the latest OS7 models. However, for a smartphone that can be connected 24/7 to EDGE or 3G, the battery lasts quite awhile. I started the day at 100% then heading off to OU with EDGE on. I used Wikitude, BBM, Twitter and Facebook a whole lot and came back with around 80% of my battery still left. Not bad.

After full day of use, I really think I made a right choice with going with BB. Though, as for the Torch's build quality, I'm quite worried about the slider!

Before the morning?

There are two ways to explain my current situation;

1. Either I'm going through what I'm going through to learn something new

OR

2. IF Calvinism is true, then perhaps I'm just not lucky enough to be loved by God.

My family is the biggest burden I have so far. The fact that I lost the only few friends whom I can ever express myself too adds on to it.

I've had enough of my mother not having a job yet not wanting to help me out in things that she can help me out with. I've had enough of her nagging. She's been working so much all her life, so find, she showed her love by money. Once the money stopped flowing, she pretends that she's been a great mother who spends time with her kids since young and knows them perfectly well. Heads up, you don't know me at all.

My dad. Arrogant and unreasonable, the worse combo. I study in the day and go for my tuitions, and what happens at night? I used the internet, and with a holiday tomorrow, I use it past midnight.

He goes on and on about how it's been affecting my results and how I'm using it too much but like wha-?!

I worked for my trials, I've improved on almost every single paper by at least a 10 mark margin and still you say it's not enough?

All I want is a short break before SPM, and you can't give it to me because you refuse to be "disobeyed"

Come to think of it, my upbringing was terrible.

Why am I so different from my sister in terms of confidence? Why am I so not confident in all I do and say? Why do I have such a temper?

My dad has a worse temper than me so...check.

The last time I heard them say "sorry" to me genuinely was probably when I wouldn't stop crying as a kid. They have an ego so high that even when they're wrong, they always somehow twist the situation "We MIGHT be wrong, but your response was also wrong so... blabla"

I don't understand. When you do something wrong, you apologize! You don't point out mistakes in someone else's reaction to your wrongdoing first!!!

The blame was always placed on me, so perhaps that's why I'm always so insecure in my beliefs, my faith and my friends.

God knows how much I yearn for someone I can pour my tears out to again.

Will I grow up to be a bitter man? Will I hold on to the hatred in my heart and take revenge on the ones who started it all?

Or will I be the better man and show the unloving what love is?

Only time will tell.

And today...

No pictures today, using my old computer!

I just need a friend.

Yes I ranted a really long post but I just decided to not post it.

The greatest day of history

A few "disastrous" events has happened in my life for the past week. Events that made me go "God, you kidding me?"

It seems that it's my gut response to put the blame on someone when life sucks.

But God is smart, very smart. The philosophy that he put me through has given me only one ability over a few others. I was given the ability to think. To think past my emotional barriers when thinking with your emotions becomes tempting. It's hard, but I thank God for it.

I have no looks to surpass others.

I have no real skill that is better than the average layman.

I sometimes even question my self-worth.

So what does God want to do with this lousy piece of clay when there are so many better pieces of clay to use?

This, I think is one problem with the view of Calvinism. If man had no free will, then God picks and chooses who does what. No one has the ability to try his best for God.

But before I go on, let me recap on what horrendous events happened this week:

Conflict and dejection from the body of Christ?

I had a quarrel with Huey Lin and a small one after that with Aaron. I should be used to it, but I'm just tired of being reconciled with people and just feel awkward with them again. I've been tolerating them for so long, but I'm about to go booms. Let's face it. I have a really opinionated personality. I've been into conflicts and clashes with almost all of the youth. Some my fault, some their fault. It's just hard mixing with EVERYONE knowing that you'll clash with them either way. I'd love to just hang around with the people that I CAN click with, and ignore the rest. But that would be mean. TBH, I also feel discriminated as a thinker by the youth leadership. I don't know if it's the case, but with what Ivan has been telling me. I do feel that I'm being looked as a person of pure reason and no faith. But Ivan only knew half of the story of my faith. He only knew of my doubts and questions. He doesn't know how I overcame doubts by diving into the richest source of knowledge in the world- Internet philosophy(it was more of being "pushed" into it). To sum it all up, I believe in the God of Christianity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. I believe in the doctrine of the resurrection and all. But why do I feel a little offended because I hold to different interpretations of certain scripture, and because I believe in these because of reason? Has God endowed me with reason only to forgo the use of it? Though these are just my assumptions.

I'm still not over youu?

Actually I am. Rachel was my best friend. She was the only person outside my family circle who has ever heard me cry (excluding childhood events lah of course). She was there when my faith was at breaking point, when my life was a messy disaster. She cared when no one else bothered.

But a few series of events happened last year. And now, we're just like strangers. Recently I got the chance to talk to her again. To be honest, Rachel is a very different person to me now. After the whole conflict she tells me that it's up to me if we still wants to be friends "lor". She says that well, if I still want to be close to her, then I'll have to go to her instead of her trying anything at all. I do believe that she has her faults in this conflict, and I do believe that I am not the only one who thinks so. But still, the very fact that the one person whom I held so dear to me has became someone who just wouldn't give a crap about our friendship anymore was disheartening and discouraging.

I failed my driving test!!

That's right. I failed.

I failed parking because I was oh so blur and careless.

I failed the road test with a GSM because I used my leg brakes instead of my hand brakes and was careless there as well.

I won't blame the car or the JPJ examiner. It was my fault. I should've gotten more sleep knowing how much of sleep I need to get through the day like this. I shouldn't have ate seafood sushi knowing that I have a big day tomorrow.

I was nervous.

I sucked.

Mid-terms?

My mid-term results were horrible. Nuff said.

So with all the failures and heartbreaks going around, where's my hiding place? What is God telling me? Does God hate me?

You see, through my failures, God has showed me things that I would not have seen when I am heartily happy with what I have been doing.

Through my weaknesses, he has showed me where I am weak at, and why I needed to be humbled to see it. My will is not as strong as I thought it was. Therefore I have to resist all temptations, even temptations of pride early instead of head on because I know how I'll get owned in a head to head battle with Pride.

Through my failures, God has showed me the consequences of not obeying him multiple times and thinking that what I do will not have any adverse effects- Like staying up late before my driving test to Troll CJ in LoL. That extra one hour of sleep could have gave me the alertness to pass my test and save my parents RM360. He has taught me also not to underestimate my studies and not be like my friends, friends who are born with the natural ability to do math and memorize so well last minute. I can't. I have limits.

And through everything, God has shown me mercy. I got to get extra close to people like Alicea and Phei Fern through the turmoil...

And thank God for that.

Getting closer to Phei Fern helped me see past what I already know of her and made me realize how much she has been doing for me and how much she actually sacrificed for her friends.

And Alicea? She was the first person I informed about my problem with the Church that arose recently and also talked to her about what I've been through with EHEM for the past 3 years.

Despite doing really well for her driving test, she kept on encouraging me to not give up despite knowing that I failed the easiest part of the test. She didn't diss me or anything, she just kept the support up. If I wasn't sleepy, that encouragement could've went a looooong way. And despite knowing how I only got 4/20 because of a GSM for my road test while she got 20/20, she didn't go "omg how you fail?! it was so easy!" She still gave her support like a mother would give to her child. (Even my family dissed me for failing btw)

And also, I got closer to Yuen Wei. Sure, he might be a tad annoying when he talks politics all the time and when he won't stop talking and joking around about serious matters. But well, what can I say, he does know when to help and when to cheer someone up. I guess the only thing he should learn now is to know when to stop joking -.-

What deer-deeer friends I have stumbled upon!

And so, life is not a snapshot. I might be going through crap right now, but I guess, I can expect brighter days up ahead as long as I turn my eyes upon the greatest conceivable being- God.

Running away again

And he's running away...

I've been reconciled with the best friend. At a price. Our best-friendship. We're now just acquaintances, but that's better than being enemies.

Haiyoh. If you don't know the full story of anything, don't lah jump to conclusions.

The post was edited because of fear that a few narrow-minded individuals would jump straight to their own conclusions based on their pre-held prejudices.

Jeesh what happened to you? When did you become so arrogant?

Theology?

Beautiful leaves planted at Yuen Wei's mansion...

Theology. C.S.Lewis once described it as a map in his famous book, Mere Christianity(If I've recalled correctly). You might believe in God without any theology, but that is like sailing in water without a map. Now, maps aren't always 100% perfect just as much as our theology might not be, but at least it helps lead you to your desired destination.

Theology isn't as simple as it seems. Many many Christians have different theories and beliefs about certain aspects of Christianity, but it's definitely worth noting that they're all labelled as Christians because they at least do share a few core theologies in common. (Mere Christianity does a ngawwfully good job at summarizing what all Christians believe.)

It gets harder, let me tell you, when Theology meets philosophy. Theories of Divine providence, theories of atonement, theodicies... It's not just arguing using scriptural support anymore. Thinking about God is not easy. We can try to fathom the Great Mystery, but man, it's no easy feat doing so.

But in light of all this, I thank God for allowing us to be able to go to him as we are, without immense knowledge of sorts. It's just that for the some of us here who were called to well...think... I guess things aren't that simple haha.

Of VBS and testimonials...

Meet Hannah. She's so cuuuuuuute!

Anyway, CbC's annual VBS happened on the 3rd and 4th of June and I was a part of it (as a photog, no surprise eh?)

To tell you the truth, I did feel a tad down due to certain issues that I was already facing, and to add salt to my wound, an argument broke out between me and one of my best friends during VBS itself. It's funneh. She was one of those people that I'd go to if I really needed to talk to someone about something, of course I wasn't as comfortable with talking heart with her as much as I was with my umm...old... best friend (I know having multiple best friends might be an oxymoron, but calling a few of them "close friends" doesn't seem to do justice to how close they really are to me). So with all of the closest people to me gone, I really had to keep everything in me in, which wasn't easy.

No one noticed anything except this little indian kid who came up to me and said "eyh brother, don't sad la, I know you sad." It made my day and I guess I started loving kids a whole lot more after that.

...It didn't change the fact that I still had no one to just talk to about the snowballing problems that had been troubling me for a few months now.... I just needed to let something out, but to whom?

And I guess God worked right there when that happened. To be completely honest with you, I always had this impression on Aly that she was those sort of girls who are umm... well lets just say that I always portrayed her as a woman CEO(in a bad way la). No it wasn't necessarily a bad impression, just that I didn't think of her as the sort that would care much or anything else. So why am I suddenly talking about her? Well because I got pwned. I was talking to her casually and then from there the discussion moved on to one of my issues. Which was when I realized that I had been so wrong about her... THANKS ALY!

So with a few things off my back finally, I guess it's safe to blog about what some of my issues were about.

I often go to GT on Sundays, visit their cell sometimes, and I even went for DUMC once alr.

Yes, to be honest, I was actually thinking of "switching" churches. I've been contemplating on that due to several reasons. Now the reason why I'm still staying was because I was trying to examine myself more to see whether I'm making my decisions based on selfish and arrogant reasons or genuine reasons.

After the talk yesterday, I guess, I was pretty much convinced that I won't solve anything by jumping.

To sum it all up....

HANNAH SO CUUUUTE!!

Photography update #1

It's been awhile since I posted here so I guess I'll start with talking about my new lens; The Canon 15-85 IS USM.

The sharpness of the lens is significantly sharper than my old lens and the IS lets me do really nice low light sometimes. I do miss my constant f2.8 aperture, but I think the exchange for a good price+better focusing+2 years warranty+huge range was worth it. Yes, I cannot thank Goldfries enough for recommending this lens to me as the range helped out so much during my coverage of VBS.

I didn't really do a really good job for VBS though, was still getting used to the lens and RAW processing. I was also struggling due to memory shortage since I was shooting in RAW.

Yes, the above picture was taken at the butterfly park in the National Science Center that we went to for our VBS outing.

Yes, it was taken at f8 with the Canon 15-85 lens. and it was post processed.

Poison.

In the world of DSLR photography, when a photog refers to "poisoning", it is when a certain photographer has a certain type of gear that produces images that will "poison" the viewers to buy that equipment.

I've been poisoned for the past 3 months (and is also probably the cause of why I studied a little less :P)

The lens above is the Canon 15-85 IS USM f3.5-5.6 EF-S lens.

Right, so it's not a constant f2.8 lens which I am acustomed to.

But given the price of the 17-55 Canon f2.8 and the need to actually hunt for a decent copy of the Sigma 17-50 f2.8, I've decided to go for the 15-85 because of it's good optical performance, wide range and of course, the USM motor.

I hope to sell my current lens and then get this lens by VBS. My Sigma has front-back focusing issues (I'm going to service it first) and of course, is heavy and not as sharp as the Canon.

The canon weighs around 575g, approx 200g lighter than my current lens. It also features Image Stablization (which comes in handy with movie and low-light).

Sure the Sigma 17-50 OS HSM features an optical stabilizer, f2.8 constant aperture and HSM motor. But my biggest concern is that to purchase a Sigma 17-50 for the price of the Canon, I'll have to order it from online stores (which is fine in terms of trust). The problem is for lens hunting, especially since Sigma has QC issues whereby if you get a bad copy, you're screwed. Getting a good copy of the Sigma 17-50 will definitely give me imba image quality (Superb rating on the mtf charts) however, I don't think I'd take the risk.

Apart from that, I plan to get the Capa quick strap since I'll be doing more walkarounds in school and perhaps at other events. The extra comfort would be great. It'll cost me RM55.

Also, a great lens will have to come with a great filter (approx RM250) and a lens hood (Canon doesn't give away free lens hoods unless it's an L-series lens).

I'll also definitely need new diffusers for my speedlite.

Looks like I'll have to wait until next time to get my battery grip.

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1536268/+200?hl=capa

http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1578033

Such an expensive hobby... But the benefits are great :D

The power of RAW image processing.

As most DSLR users would know, we have many options of picture formats to process our pictures in. The preset is usually under a large .jpeg setting. But what I realized after hanging around the pros in the Lowyat forums is that most of the pros who do PP(post-processing) shoot in RAW.

I understood a long time ago that shooting in RAW would allow me better PP capabilities, but only to a certain extent. I didn't do it at first because I needed to convert it afterwards and the file size was huge! With a empty 8GB card, I can shoot at least 900 .jpeg pictures, while it was only 250 if I shot in RAW.

But I eventually decided to try it out, and the results were...wow.

By shooting in RAW, your pictures keep most of the settings from your camera when the picture was shot, which I think, allows for better manipulation of the image. I couldn't use my normal editing software to process the picture though, so I had to use Canon's Digital Photo Professional that came along with my 60D. I was astounded by the results.

The colors turned out so much better after minor tweaking, and it was much easier to adjust the WB and exposure there.

Take these pictures of Alicea and Sarah for example:

First a few comments. On Aly's pic, there's an obvious amount of 'softness' in the picture. This is because of my misaligned lens that causes my focusing to be slightly off at my maximum focal length (70mm x 1.6). DPP cannot save the picture. What it did however, is improve the overall color settings of the picture without compromising much of your image quality. On Sarah's picture, I did a previous edit with a jpeg copy of it with my old editor and got slightly okay results, but after I did the RAW version of the picture, things became much more toned. In my previous software, increasing the contrast by a little would sacrifice alot of the images overall quality by adding grain into the picture and causing the colors to be imbalanced. RAW images however, are able to be tweaked without compromising that much.

But I do admit, using a software like DPP to edit is really hard and tiring. Only small changes are needed to be made to get a brilliant picture, and for that, you require a patient and gentle hand along with a sharp eye for colors, something which I haven't yet posses.

Though bare in mind, PP-ing can only get you thus far, the way in which the picture was taken is very important too.

In Sarah's picture, the exposure was imbalanced on one side of her face compared to the other. This was because the sun was pointing at one side of her face and creating a darker side on the other side of her face. I should have did a fill flash to balance the light, but meh, I was just lazy.

Alicea's picture on the other hand, had quite a fair amount of lighting on both sides of her face, so balance wasn't exactly the problem. The problem was of course, with the softness of the image. I could've corrected the WB a little better as the picture looks rather warm (no pun intended).

In both pictures, my composition could have also been better.

Nevertheless, shooting in RAW has really shown me how much potential I have in my camera.

God of this city?

Today I will be presenting an argument for the topic titled :"Should Malaysian Christians emigrate?" and will attempt to argue for the negative.

But before I begin, I must first say a word of thank you to my friend Yuen Wei, whom I debated this topic with (in a rather rash manner) today. I also must apologize to him for not being too clear with my arguments and hammering him for various fallacies that he has committed in our exchange of ideas because frankly, I don't think he took this to be a formal debate or something. I also want to apologize for various assertions that I've made that can be deemed fallacious as well.

I will now start by noting down what I will be arguing for and what I am NOT arguing for.

I will be arguing that:

1. A Malaysian Christian is not encouraged to emigrate for certain intents.

I will NOT be arguing that:

1. Malaysia has economical, social and financial benefits over other countries such as the UK or US.

2. We should not go overseas to further our education or obtain work experiences.

3. We have to be submissive to the authorities, right or wrong.

4. Emigration is wrong regardless of the context.

Recently, it has been a trend for Malaysian students (Chinese and Indians esp) to emigrate overseas after they have received their qualifications or 'freedom' to do so. The issue at hand will be whether or not a Christian should be encouraged to do so. As a disclaimer, I would like to state that I am in no sense a professional Theologian nor am I professional Philosopher, I am just here to share what I think is the most rational and truthful thing to do in light of particular belief systems. I will first present a few arguments in favor of Christians being discouraged to emigrate to other countries for particular intents.

1. The 'selfless?' argument.

This issue has seen major debates among local theological circles. Bishop Hwa Yung (who was my camp speaker for my Church Camp (back at Mega CMC) when I was form 1) has published an article in the Nov/Dec 2006 issue of Berita NECF titled "Should Christians Emigrate?" which suggests that emigration should be the exception instead of the rule because of the great socio-political and spiritual needs of our Country. I also do recall Pastor Julie Khoo of Glad Tidings Petaling Jaya talking to the youth about "coming back to the country" after they complete their studies if they do go overseas to further their studies. There are also many local Pastors who argue otherwise.

My first argument is what most people with the same position would have probably argued for (probably): That most people who wish to emigrate to other countries do so because of several self-centered intentions. These intentions/reasons include: Malaysia's notorious political status, high income rate in other countries, unfair and biased policies in Malaysia, advancement in other countries, being treated like a second-class citizen (pendatang!) and so forth.

It then follows that if an individual has selfish intentions, then is it still encouraged by the Christian worldview which teaches humility? The answer is a no.

The main contention of this argument will be of course, whether these intentions are selfish or not. One objection I see coming is Christians bringing in missionaries who have emigrated to further God's kingdom, pastors who have emigrated overseas that have built mega churches and etc. In the sum of it all, they argue that God's purpose can be fulfilled in another country.

But first let's remember my main contention, which is "Christians should not be encouraged to emigrate under certain 'contexts'". In the context of a missionary or a pastor, one can easily imagine God making an obvious call for them to move overseas to work through them, not for their own personal gain (I do not doubt that they do gain from working overseas), but because it serves God. But how many people who have migrated overseas would tell you that they're doing it all for God? 35% of Malaysians who have migrated are Christians, and I certainly doubt that even a majority of them are pastors or missionaries. Most of them go overseas for the higher-income there, or because of the political "issues" in our country. These objections are not cogent because the objector has failed to make a clear distinction between the intentions which most emigrants have in mind for migrating compared to what pastors or missionaries have in mind.

The next objection would be that the Bible permitted emigration, as is of course evident in Christian history when persecution comes. They then bring this into context with our local political scene and claim that we ought to move due to persecution. My objection is simple; What type of persecution and what was the level of severity of it in those days compared to here? Back then, Christians were physically tormented, abused as slaves or massacred. Is that happening to us now? Again, do not mistake me for arguing that Christians here in Malaysia are having it well for us. Yes I agree, there is persecution here, just as there is also persecution for our beliefs in school from teachers or friends. But do I shift schools when some teacher makes offensive remarks against my religion or when I am treated slightly unfairly in school because of my religion? Do I shift schools when the CF is one of the most persecuted club in the school? In fact, I think that our political status gives us all the more reason to stay, to stay and fight for the betterment of our country. Every vote during the election counts, the opposition was 300k votes away from winning the previous GE, and imagine if the huge sum of people who did not vote and all the expats came back to vote... How can you complain about Malaysia having no hope when you are making ourselves more "hopeless" by migrating to another country? Are we being just pathetic by complaining non-stop about our political scene and yet do nothing about it(in fact, by running away, are we not conceding?)? Change begins with you, and if you're lazy to change, then how do you expect everyone to change? That's selfish! We can look at what most urban Malaysians consider as "heroes of democracy" like Lim Kit Siang, Guan Eng, RPK and so forth, and applaud them for their sacrifices for our country, being detained multiple times, being defamed and have the odds stacked against them. But by leaving the country, we concede that we have lost, and by doing so, the sacrifices of these men are put to waste.

Though I must also concede that there is a weakness in an assumption made by the main premise of this argument; That these people are being 'selfish' by wanting to live better lives. Don't we all want better lives, and are we wrong by doing so?

To further strengthen this argument then, I need another argument that must imply that by migrating, I am doing something that is discouraged by the teachings of Christianity. Not all pleasurable and things that make us live better lives are good. Stealing something from someone that will make us healthier might let us live better lives, but whether it is morally good...

2.The argument from thanksgiving.

This argument is more of an intuitive argument rather than a strong and solid deductive one. It goes something like this (Forgive me for errors in formalizing, I tend to make mistakes there):

(1) It is always better to repay good with good even if there is little good as a Christian.

(2) Our country has given us good.

(3) Therefore, it is always better to repay our country as a Christian.

To justify premise (1), it seems that it is quite obvious that as Christians, we ought to repay a kind act from someone regardless of the magnitude of kindness that has been given unto us. In fact, we are even called to repay evil with good!

Premise (2) would be the one that people would most likely disagree with. Has Malaysia really done me any good? As human beings, we tend to think about what bad things people have done to us rather than the good. We tend to remember our best friends betrayal of us compared to the millions of times that he/she has helped us and so on. So let's sit down and think awhile; Has our country really gave us nothing? Have they given us a proper education system? It's bad, and yet, it's proper. We are still able to be accepted as students in Universities so long as we achieve the minimum requirements even while we still reside in our horribly managed education system. In this case, I think the truth of this premise is more plausible than it's negation.

The conclusion should logically follow from the premises.

But how is it to be interpreted? Simply put, are we repaying the country by bad mouthing the government, then not do anything about it and migrate overseas?

One might argue "I repay them already in tax what!!". Firstly, are you sure it's your tax and non your parents? Secondly, Jesus himself said "Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar", which seems to imply that we already should be paying our taxes, not as an act of thanksgiving or kindness.

Though another weakness of this argument is that an individual can still migrate to other countries and yet still return to vote or buy stuff or help in another sort of way, but by doing so, you concede that Malaysia is worth repaying, and that it is still YOUR country.

3.Conclusions

First, some objections...

Some people opted for emigration because they think about their children. Bishop Hwa Yung counters this by citing the following:

Firstly, those who emigrate are usually well off enough to have sent their children overseas and thus their children already have a good head start and secondly, if they can trust God for their security, should they also not trust the Lord for their children’s security?

In this case, I don't think this makes a very solid case for what he is arguing for various arguments that will not be put forth here. I would ask the following questions to the objector:

1.Are things really that bad here?

2.Are you being really honest with yourselves that in making a decision to emigrate, you think about your children? Are you citing this just as some sort of reason to make yourself sound good?

I conclude by asking anyone who plans to emigrate to consider my arguments and ideas seriously. I am in no way saying that you will somehow be condemned to hell because you migrated. I am merely expressing my thoughts about this issue, and if you do have any further objections, do do it constructively. As I've mentioned earlier, I might be wrong, and I'm willing to learn more. Will you really achieve what you want in another country? Wealth I do not doubt, but I disagree with doing something unpatriotic for wealth's sake. Harmony? Do you honestly think that you will no longer be labelled as a "second class citizen" in another country? You will be, and you have all rights to be because you are in fact a true "pendatang". You belong here because you are a Malaysian. Malaysia belongs to you because Malaysia belongs to Malaysia. Will you not fight the injustice that you have observed even if you had the power to do so? Or will you just run?

In the end, it is still your right to choose to migrate or not. My current stand is that we should not be encouraged to do so when we take into context certain mainstream reasons of why people do leave and in context with our belief system.

Lastly, I would like to apologize for any misrepresentation of data or information cited from other sources, and of course, if I have misrepresented God's truth.

Further reading:

http://www.kairos2.com/emigration_Malaysia.htm

http://theagora.blogspot.com/2007/04/should-christians-emigrate.html

Happy birthday Aly!

Some of the youth surprised Alicea for her 17th birthday after our youth's Easter celebration.

We then headed over to Tutti Frutti for supper.


Happy birthday Aly!



(As you can see, the picture speaks a thousand words)

1st post

It's been awhile since I went from "shutter-warrior" to "keyboard-warrior".

Life's been tough. Not as tough as I might make it seem to be, since, there are blessings in my life.

Anyway, this blog will be more photography oriented, which means that I wouldn't be ranting much here. I might however express certain views on certain issues with a picture attached :)

The above picture was taken August last year when I first got my Speedlite. I re-edited it today by messing around with the adjusment brush tool and found out how wonderful it was.