202 - semiotics

Exams are around the corner soon. Let's get some quick replies.

reply to ol' Vanz : Oh dear... I seem to have misrepresented myself... I hardly want to accelerate the abolishment of gays laws... haha... And who knows... what you say may come to pass, as in if people push for it to be abolished sooner then the rest may be aware and delay its abolishment... hehe

You seem kind of resigned to relativism, and I admit, that will be the general trend till the end of the world.

It's kind of like, I once did a paper on female genital mutilation practice in Africa, and women themselves see it as essential, in order to be considered a proper and respectable woman of their society. Those who refuse are ostracised. And its done by women themselves even and there are many many other reasons for it which made them think it appropriate.

Of course we'd all reel in digust now and feminists will be up in arms with all their social theories and so on as to why the tribals thought it socially normal...

But whatever the case, the point I'm trying to make is that, they thought it was acceptable, so they practised it.

As I mentioned before, most people thought persecuting Jews was normal, so they practised it. And they had plenty of reasons to justify themselves too! Just like the female genital mutilators.

My main point: Just because most people think a certain activity is okay is not a sound basis or reasoning for public acceptance or approval of an activity.

But then, what does it matter? After all, people are absolute masters of themselves aren't they? They themselves can know what's best for themselves.

reply to esther: I'm glad you have started returning to the Bible to get a clearer picture of what's going on. And I'm glad that we are in agreement on your proposal that there are no such people who have followed the law in their hearts perfectly.

I could go on as to regards issues with your church, but then, I don’t want this ‘last laugh’ mentality as we’re not here to poke at each other and it’s going to take a long time to compile it, but rest assured, I’ll address the serious issues again here.

Dearest Prof. Benj:

It’s so amusing how he lost my essay (but it’s really my fault anyway because I submitted it late) and how he’s so honest about it being lost somewhere in his portable harddisk, school or home computer (hehe).

I didn’t know he was born a Jew until that rather strange retort from him about having studied the Old Testament as an orthodox Jew and thinking they should be thought of as stories.

Well, since he’s not a believer anymore I can safely conclude that it would not be ‘scientifically objective’ to draw conclusions about the matter from his own personal experiences regarding the subject proper… it’s a bit like Freud analyzing his own dreams. Nice, but as you could guess, everything was about repressed sexuality. Not only about him but about every other patient he had ‘treated’.

It’s like you gathering evidence from me about what the Muslim faith is. (I’d try to give you some of my factual understandings, but you won’t know what the faith really is about because I just think that they’re not true at all)

But he has done lots of great work and research in his fields of anthropology, and sure is an apt and thorough researcher. Guess when it comes to issues that involve you personally you tend to end up subjective.

Probable discussion topics in the future (after exams)

1. Defining ‘gay’ – what do we really mean?
2. What is truth?

A tribute to the lost people who read my blog:

“Who knows the answers, who do you trust – can’t even separate love from lust…”
Twenty-Something (Jazz favourite sung by many artists)

Amen!