Seriours topics continued

禮 (Politeness)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4596390.stm

It talks about "respect", in France, in the light of the new policy proposed by the Labour government in the UK. Economically developed societies like UK have been suffering from lack of respect, resulting in conflicts and hence violence. It can be seen from local families, to people with different income, races, and religions.

In a typical English family (as far as I've seen in this country), there's not much respect between parents and children. Children thinks their parents don't understand them because of the difference in age; and parents always think their children are too lucky to be living in such materialized world. This creates huge gaps between generations, and forms the building-blocks of social conflicts.

Even before the born of Jesus, “Hung Chi”(孔子, an ancient Chinese philosopher borned in 552 B.C.) suggested that a harmony community must be built on “Lai” (politeness, in a much broader meaning). When I was still a child, I was wondering if there's any need to say "thank you" to really close friends and family. My dad told me that we should always say thank you when somebody does us a favour. A "Thank you" probably doesn't mean anything like real Thankful nowadays. People just say it as a must sometimes. A good example is that some Hong Kong people simply say "Dor Sei" instead of "Dor Tse Sai" (the former means nothing, but sounds similar if you read the latter quickly, which means "Thank you very much"). For God sake, don't say it if you don't mean it!!!

"Lai" includes the respect of one towards another. It can be represented in words or gestures. I don't know too much about it because I haven't read the book yet (an ancient literature simply called "Lai"). So... just read on..

Faith

There was a TV programme on Channel 4 Monday evening, called Root of all evil (http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/rootofevil.html). It questions all different faiths, or religions, in oppose to science. Actually it says much of violence and war in the modern world are results of these strong faiths, and therefore the root of all evil. It was a very interesting programme. The presenter, who is a well-known writer about evolution (The Selfish Gene), went to America and Jerusalem, visiting prominent figures in both Christianity and Muslim.

In America, you can see Chapels, Churches and other similar types of Christian organizations everywhere. Even their President talks a lot about God in his speeches. It’s so common and popular. Also Sunday gatherings provide good change to socialize. So the presenter visited the organizer of a large-scale of such gathering. This organizer claimed he holds weekly telephone conference with George W. Bush, discussing politics and foreign policies, because Bush and he believe he is sent by God to work on Americans. Also he said he rubs shoulders with Tony Blair and Ariel Sharon. This man doesn’t believe evolution at all, and kicking the presenter out of the church because the presenter calls his “children” “animal” (evolution reveals that human are modern version of monkeys, animals). In fact, the program mentioned a research saying 45% of American population believe the world is less than 10000 years old. Perhaps they believe the God created the world (and universe I suppose) in 6 days.

The presenter also went to Jerusalem to visit a Muslim fundamentalist. This guy asked the presenter to go home and fix his society, because women go out dressing like whores. He also said that soldiers will be sent if you (the presenter) keep advertising false theories like evolution.

What is faith? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Faith is:

Noun: 1 complete trust or confidence. 2 strong belief in a religion. 3 a system of religious belief.

The presenter is a scientist, and hence has no doubt about what science shows. Does he have faith? I think he does, but it’s not a person or religion, it’s a concept. He argued why people would believe in some scribbling that came from Ancient time (1500 years ago), created by a group of perhaps genius (the Bible), but not science, which is supported by mountains of evidence, and always challenging itself to improve.

My colleagues and I had a quite deep conversation on faiths last month in the Christmas lunch (rather serious conversation for such occasion). We discussed supernatural powers which may exist and control the world. These powers may be of a form that people believe it’s a person. We also discussed about the existence of soul, for example if one does a brain transplant, who is the new person. But we all agreed that a person can only live with meanings if he/she has faith, of whatever form (God, Allah, or science, or even himself).

I was brought up with education of sciences (well, and a bit of literature, which I am not so good at). I never had doubt with evolution, because time to time we see fossils, and similar evidence. One recent example is the talk of H5N1 bird flu virus mutate to the form of going human to human. The concept of natural selection, and hence evolution, is deep in my mind that I don’t believe Adam and Eva. For me, believing in God, or some kind of god, is new. But for some people like those living in America and Jerusalem, believing in evolution and other science theories is a sin. IS THIS FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE THE ROOT OF WARS, TERRORISM?