Well, well, well... I suppose it is time to do a little bit of writing here again.
We are now in the so-called ``phase two'' of the ``circuit breaker'', a lock-down/shelter-in-place in all but name. In Phase Two, the supposed restrictions that were put in place to keep people from leaving their domicile for anything but the most pressing of essential needs have been loosened a little, allowing a very restricted amount of socialising (up to five people in a group, all respecting ``social distancing'' rules of course) despite making it clear that there shouldn't be any [unnecessary] socialising.
Do I have any comments about this? Sure, but they are mostly along the lines of ``just because it can be done doesn't mean it ought to be done''. And so with that in mind, I am personally still going to stay at home for as much as it is possible until things are more under control.
The magic thing I am looking out for is the so-called ``community case count'' for the week after Jul 10---that is roughly two weeks after the transition into phase two, and a week of monitoring the trend will also take into account the increased number of potential exposures from the students who are supposed to be returning to school from yesterday onwards.
Only if these numbers are on the low side that I will be more comfortable restarting my social activities, and even then, it will be at a very low gear for some necessary meet ups that need to occur. It will happen when it will happen, and I am not really fretting about the inability to plan for them---this whole year is absolute garbage in terms of planning anyways, so another month of waiting and non-planning isn't going to affect things more than it already has.
Oh, and there's apparently a General Election being held, with the Nomination Day concluding today, having all 93 seats of parliament being contested, and the actual voting day itself on Jul 10.
Do I have any comments on that? Not really, other than it being important to pay attention to what the party members who are contesting in one's ward or GRC saying and claiming to say, and to make one's own damn mind about whom they think can best represent their interests in parliament. While the party as a whole may provide the type of over-arching narrative/policy that is of national interest, it is still the individual members of parliament that are supposed to represent us---we live in a republic, and we vote for our own representatives to stand for us as members of parliament to fight for our interests. Singapore is small enough that there is often little impedence mismatch between what we citizens want and what is good for the country's development, and so, whoever is going to vote should just make up their own mind.
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I have been thinking over the past couple of months about life in general, the Scripture, and my own perspective on how things work. Ding told me to go read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, which I completed recently (am currently embarking on the sequel of sorts, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow). I can see the allure of the historic-anthropological perspective in which Harari uses to write his exposition, but don't see it as being contradictory to what Scripture is saying. What I mean is, sure, maybe the bible is indeed a myth created and written by humankind during the time when they didn't know any better, and maybe humankind was a by-product of four billion years of evolutionary processes that we can only explain in a sort of statistical sort of way; the real question is, do these really explain away the existence of God Himself? Who's to say that the setting up of four billion years of evolutionary processes was not the work of God? God is, by definition, unknowable by us, so what seems to be impossible by us through proof (hello computational theory and oracles!) may mean only that we are limited in our imagination.
Why do we need to assume that God needed to take the most direct and simple route to get something (like having His Word written down) done? Occam's Razor is just a heuristic to aid us combat the curse of dimensionality that comes with complexity---because it is important that whatever hypothesis we come up with can be communicated to a third person and then convince that said person, in time that doesn't last longer than our mortal life span. But faith and belief is very individual---you can choose to believe, or you can choose not to. Whether you are objectively right or wrong is a non-question.
God's relationship with humankind, through Jesus, is of a personal kind, and with that, a lot of it is therefore bound by one's experience and perception. Is it the scientific way then? Of course not---because experience and perception are not things that are falsifiable and replicable, the cornerstones for the scientific method. While it is important to go round spreading the good news [that one is saved through Jesus's sacrifice and resurrection], it is also important to remember that like all relationships, it can only be entered willingly, and not be forced. So it's okay if someone doesn't want to believe that Jesus died for their sins, it's also okay if someone believes that they don't have sin. They are still humans, just not God's children, that's all.
``But MT, there are so many different schools of thoughts/religions out there, why do you think that God is and the bible is the authoritative Word of God?'' There will never be a satisfactory answer to that question, because God's relationship with humankind, through Jesus, is of a personal kind. It is right and true for me, but is it right and true for you is something that only you can answer.
And that's about as much theology I am willing to indulge. I'm pretty sure that it is possible to poke holes in my arguments here, but I won't even bother providing responses to those if they come---I'm merely thinking and doing something that I personally believe in, with zero intention of attempting to convince someone, therefore ``it doesn't harm anyone and it works for me'' principles hold.
Till the next update, perhaps.
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