Fun And Games

Sigh, is this really that offensive? Enough to detract the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) from cleaning up their own act, and distract the public from the investigation of MHA high ranking officers exchanging sensitive information for bedroom favours? And provide more delays "to come clean with the people what information have they got (sic)", to borrow the words of one Khaw Boon Wan.

That "Thailand is a place of little true joy" is simply a expression of what the Campus Crusade for Christ group hoped, some may say naively, to achieve in their mission trip, i.e. show them true joy, whatever that may be. Their target audience may welcome the visit, or they may not. The choice is that of the Thais - they may not receive the religious messages, but they may find the guitar strumming and sing along musical presentations entertaining. Campus Crusade for Christ is an interdenominational Christian organization that promotes evangelism and discipleship in more than 190 countries around the world. Besides the traditional one-to-one conversations about God to reach out to students, they also use mass meetings, film showings and new media, such as Google advertising. They also founded The Jesus Film Project in 1981 to translate the Hollywood film "Jesus" into 1,006 languages and shown the film in 228 nations. That's another way to spread "true joy" to other people. If you don't like it, don't attend the showing.

Besides the Campus Crusade for Christ, there are many other Christian groups on campus. All of them share something common, young undergraduate minds trying to understand religion. Not all will find it though, some may discover joy elsewhere. Should their quest for personal happiness and spiritual knowledge be quenched by the sledge hammer of the MHA?

Even within the Christian world, it's not all fun and games, joy and laughter. To give you an idea of how complicated religion can be, take a gander at this extract from a stunning guide into the source of scriptures:

"Later in the Book of Isaiah, the Sepuagint's (Greek translation of the Hebrew original text) "And I saw two mounted horsemen, and a rider on an ass, and a rider on a camel" became an embarrassment to Christian apologists but a welcome support to Muslim disputants, because it seemed to be prophesying not only that Jesus would enter into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday riding on a donkey, as the Christian Gospel described him doing in the New testament, but that he would be followed (almost exactly six centuries later) by the prophet Muhammad, who was a camel driver."
("Whose Bible Is It", Jaroslav Pelikan, Penguin Books, 2005, pg 59)

 
Just a passing thought: If the SCDF Commissioner and CNB Director "got religion", would they have found joy in the private company of the IT executive?