as usual.
8:16 PM
i even forgot what "as usual" is in french...anyway i gotta blog out my thoughts, as usual.
I'm planning to do Christianity. the main question I have to ask is : even though japan is supposedly under a lot of westernizing influence (okay, i'll have to make this one of my background points), that their conversion rate still remains LOW. like the only thing that remains HIGH is the no. of marriages in churches. (anyway that proves that the stigma is low.)
okay i see i see. I have to establish that firstly:
1) Christianity rates are LOW in japan AND THIS IS SURPRISING BECAUSE
a) increase in flow of people, resources, information (globalization) --> a lot of external influence YET it doesn't happen
b) decrease in stigmatization/official freedom of religion --> YET it doesn't happen.
actually a and b sort of interlap and overlap as reasons for why it's surprising.
Okay, after I've established that this is a phenomenon I wouldn't expect given the reasons above, the mainstay of my argument is to argue WHY.
and my arguements WHY is
1) blablablaal (I have three arguments)
I will begin by describing the history of Christianity in Japan. Just as a brief background introduction to know how the state of Christianity has been. How it was entered. (i might go back to this section when I argue later.)
Then as I move into Christianity in the present, I will explain why it's so weird that christianity remains unpopular.
Then I will argue.
Then I will conclude by saying maybe a future direction or what is the general main argument that sort of encompasses everything (sort of like my short-motoori-essay style. )
I dont really know when to write about my context but I'm thinking more of NOW. NOW NOW as in WHY IS IT THAT NOW WHEN WE ARE SO FREE (because my a and b arguments are all on NOW) that Christianity is not accepted popularly.
And also I choose Christianity as an example because it's the only one that there is significant effort made. Actually what I'm interested in is of course islam lah but you always have this grouping of religions - the monotheistic, atheistic, polytheistic ones - so in the Islam-Christian-Jewish group, christianity is the only one. (i need to find proper characterization of this kind of religion.) because jewish and islam not really marked effort so I of course won't use it but since they ahve sort of the same root (need to prove) so I want to see what are the lessons that people from these religions can learn taking from the example of Christianity when they want to da'wah. In essence i guess a DIFFERENT religion.
Question: is it possible or might it be politically incorrect to do a kind of poly vs mono. characterization?
I dunoe. must go find some general books on religion.
Okay! That's it!
4:24 AM
just a quick one. probably will have to continue another time since it's going to be isyak soon. I wonder who writes the diary at the Ellegarden site. nobody signs it, but i assume it's Hosomi-san. sounds like him, in a way, too...was just reading it. i could get bits and pieces but my kanji sucks crap. there was one kanji i KNOW i knew but...well, forgot. the pretty one i liked to write. grrr.
anyway i was wondering to myself, that maybe i'm confused. then again, after thinking it out I don't think I am. I always say that i want to remain single and I don't want to have kids. well I still don't. But yet at the bottom of my heart i pray that I will be able to meet Teh Guy. And soon. because i guess I want to love somebody too. obligations or no obligations, impure love it may be, but I wish there was somebody I could think to myself "ah, maybe we'll spend our lives together ka naaa..."
i'll have to continue this another time.
1:32 AM
I wonder if one day I'll become famous enough that people will look for my blogs and use them to write my biography, or just publish my blogs whole-sale. in which case I should take care to write more serious stuff. hahaha!actually, no. I shouldn't. I wouldn't want people reading my blog to think I'm particularly serious or anything. But I DID wonder if i WOULD become famous enough for that to happen.
At any rate I was sitting around and thinking. If Mom weren't so....weirdly scared and child-leave-me phobic I could be looking forward to a really good weekend. I don't particularly mind. I do mind because who wouldn't? It would have been nice. But I was just thinking, if all I'm going to do to my children, if I have any, is to exert control over them, not letting them choose their own life path, or always insisting they do this or that - and I mean serious things, like you must stay your whole life in this country, etc etc - then I'd rather not. I think I can see where my control freak genes come from. I don't want to be that kind of mother. In fact there is no mother I have seen in my life that I think I'd like to be. In which case i would probably be a really lousy mother.
I know that it's good to have kids and all. Adding to the ummah and everything. But I can honestly think of a million other ways in which I can be a good servant. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be a mother. It's a good thing. Paradise is at a mother's foot. But what's the point of being a mother if I'm just going to be a lousy mother? I know that this sounds vaguely like escapism. But really, everybody's gonna end up becoming mothers anyway. Isn't it good enough that they're throwing away their resources to have kids? I can devote my resources to other stuff that I'm better at. It's comparative advantage.
And like I said. Parents don't really love their children, or at least, I don't think there's any such thing as pure love for parents. There can't be any pure love from a human to a human. Because we're all in it for something. We throw tantrums when somebody disappoints us. We're always expecting something from someone else. So there's really no such thing as purely loving another human being. In other words, there's utilitarianism mixed up in it. If somebody was to tell me that they believe that they purely love another human being, they're either deluded or insane, or bullshitting or I have no idea what.
I think the only pure love that exists is between Him and us. And that's only from HIM to us. and not the other way round. Come on. Pure love cannot exist if there's a hint of obligation. And we are much obliged to Him. But He isn't in any way owing us or obliged to do anything. YET He chose to create us and love us and give us all these gifts and blessings. That is pure love. And we can never reciprocate it, but only lousily attempt to try and be grateful and to love Him by asking Him to grant us such a purity of love that He has for us, for Him in turn.
This is the world....the realisation that there is no such thing as love. Not that there isn't, but that love is so complicated exactly because of all these extra obligations thrown in. Parents are obliged to their children, and the other way round. We're obliged to our other half, and so on and so forth. It's all love mixed with obligation, mixed with desire....pure? you must be kidding me.
The only beauty in it is the pure love that He gave to us. We are incapable of rendering such a pure, selfless love. Who are we kidding?
At any rate, then, I guess human beings must be commended. Either because even in spite of realising this, they carry on doing what they do, or, they remain in some weird delusional form of existence that the people around them actually love them, and that they love those people in return.
I think that if I'm so scared of being such a lousy mother, than I might as well not do anybody an injustice by just refraining from being one.
It's not that I'm trying to portray the world in a terrible, lonely light. I'm just saying that we tend to get so caught up about whether other people love us or not that we fail to realise that He loves us even though He has absolutely no reason to. I mean, I'm not about to embark on reasons why God loves His Creations and it's partly common sense, but yeah, well.... it's just that, I guess. I guess I"m sick of people pretending or thinking that they love one another and while doing so, forgetting about Him who really really does purely love us in a way that we can never achieve, and thinking that we are actually capable of loving when all we know is how to seek obligatory love from each other.
Which is why I guess I find it pretty easy to handle disappointment, lack of misunderstanding, slandering. blablablablabla all human vices. They're just human after all. Can't expect much. Can't expect anything.