Rob Cheng's Blog
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30May
2005
Are All Muslims Going to Hell?

In April 2004, America was in the thick of the Iraqi war. Plenty of casualties on both sides, with both sides proclaiming their efforts were in the name of “God”. It shocked me to see the insurgents screaming “Death to the Americans Zionist Pigs” in the name of their God. Worse yet, our own president, Bush, confessed that he prayed to God mightily before entering our nation into war. If you listened to all the rhetoric, it seems that God was playing both sides of the fence.

This bothered my Christian way of thinking. To my God, earthly things are trivial. His divine purpose is creating the ultimate destiny of humanity. Only He understands the destiny of mankind and certainly not us mortals that live at best 100 years at a time. Why would He incite such a thing? Or could it be that both sides are confused on their vision of God, and this confusion is causing the chaos?

So one night, I bring up the key question to some of my Christian friends. Are all Muslims going to hell? This is indeed a dilemma. The Bible teaches the only way to heaven is to accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior. It is painfully obvious to me that no self respecting Muslim is going to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. But the Bible is about 2000 years ago, and the Koran and Mohammed came after Jesus Christ, so perhaps the Bible did not contemplate other and more recent ways of achieving eternal salvation. At least so I thought.

My friends explained to me that was simply not true. The Bible is explicit and universal on this subject, and there is only one conclusion that one can make. All Muslims are going to hell. I countered time and time again, but unless a Muslim accepts Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, they will suffer eternal damnation. This really set me for a loop. If this was true for Muslims, did the same logic apply for Buddhists, Hindus, and other religions? Did I believe believe that my religion is better than the religions that the other 75% of the world practices? No, I did not. My friends patiently explained to me the relevant Bible verses, but I didn’t want to hear it.

But things got worse in my mind rather than better. If we really believed that all Muslims were going to hell because they do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, then should’t our role be to enlighten them and not kill them? Is the war in Iraq more or less likely to convert Muslims to Christianity?

So I decided to have lunch with one of my senior pastors at my church. I asked him, “When you close your eyes and pray to God, do you believe it is the same God that a Muslim prays to?” He answered very quickly. No it is not. I pray to a real God, and the Muslim prays to a false God. He started to give more Bible verses to read, but to be honest, I didn’t want to read them.

It’s a slippery slope. We interpret the Bible to mean that our God is the only true God, and all others are false Gods. Do Christians really believe this? If they do, with all their heart, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to come to the conclusion that a Christian life is worth more than a Muslim life. After all, all Muslims are going to hell. I believe that God made all of us equal, but somehow as Christians, we have some of the underpinnings of religious superiority. Yuccch.

At this point, after about 4 months of this in my head, I decided to stop going to church. The reality is that there is no sure way of knowing if one religion is superior to another. All we have is faith. I felt that my faith was leading me to a bad place, where I felt religious superiority to others. I have never felt this way about my faith, and I hope I never will. I feel grateful for my religion and the insights and peace that it gives me. I feel humbled that there is a larger plan. But I have never felt superiority. And I felt that if I continued my current path, it was leading me there. So I just stopped going.

As of this writing, I still struggle with this issue. I still believe that it is wrong to believe that Christianity is the exclusive way to heaven, and hence we are the only true religion. I believe it is dangerous to believe this and I refuse to. But I have started to go to church again. There is more goodness there than bad, but I still would prefer that it would all be good when it comes to God. Maybe one day, He will make it so.
25May
2005
The Oil Age

Introduction
Check out this article, The Long Emergency. The article focuses on one basic fact – this year marks when 50% of the world’s oil reserves have been depleted. The article goes on to speculate on what our world would look like without inexepensive and plentiful oil. Have you ever thought about how fundamentally our life styles, our economy, and even the way we think, our intertwined with the basic assumption of free and inexpensive energy? It colors and touches every facet of American existence. So much so that when the world’s oil reserves are depleted, life will change so drastically, that people will reflect back on our lifestyle as a product of the Oil Age.

Revelations
One day I was visiting my friends in California, and around 5pm, I had to drive from La Jolla to Carlsbad which is less than 20 miles, but the drive took over an hour to drive. As far as the eye could see in both directions were huge string of car lights from 8 lanes of traffic. The amount of energy being consumed during that hour was staggering. Plus, I had lots of time to think. Here are some of my thoughts.

Alaska – As we start running low on oil, and the price starts running up, we will have no choice but to drill out the remaining oil. The American economy and lifestyle is addicted to oil, and ultimately we will have to drill in Alaska to feed that addiction. It’s not a question of if but when. Our government should not be fighting the exploration but defining the parameters in which the drilling will occur.

Time – I can’t exactly pinpoint when the Oil Age began, but let’s say it truly began with the invention of the combustible engine sometime in the late 1800’s. Roughly speaking, the oil age has lasted about 100 years, so far. But now that we are 50% through the world’s oil, the second half of the oil will last us much less than 100 years. The reason is that more and more countries are increasing their demand for oil and trying to join the Americans in the Oil Age. In particular, the monster Chinese economy is accelerating and with it their appetite for oil. My guess is that the Oil Age will end before the year 2050, which means that there is good chance that I will live to see the end of the Oil Age. At least, I will be here to see the impacts of a rapidly depleting oil supply.

Land – The problem with alternate energy sources is that they require lots of space. In particular, wind turbines must be placed in high altitude locations with lots of wind. And the same for solar panels. Land is still cheap, even in the US, but I suspect the cost of land will skyrocket as it gets ‘developed’ for alternate energy sources as we begin to run out of oil.

Air Conditioning – One of the biggest energy hogs in our economy is air conditioning our monster buildings. Air conditioning is often attributed toward the migration from the manufacturing northeast to the sun belt. What is going to happen as the cost of keeping ourselves cool and comfortable starts accelerate? Does this radically change the economics of being a Southerner?

Plans For the Future

I am sure there are many many more ramifications to our lifestyles. But the most important thing for me is that I want to get ready for this day. I love my lifestyle (and my air conditioning) and I want to protect it. The first thing is that I want to buy some land, lots of it, in a place with ample sun and wind. Then I am going to buy lots and lots of batteries to store all my energy. Afterwards, I am going to build a house on the land. It will be a great house with all the conveniences of home, air conditioning, big screen televisions, a modern kitchen, and of course internet access. But it will also use all of the latest technologies to save energy. Only the best insulation, lights that automatically shut off, and so on. I’ll also have a 100% electric car, but hopefully I will only be a 30 minute drive from a place where I can buy groceries and other necessities.

As my thinking adjusts, this will be my dream house. I’m going to start building it soon, certainly in the next five years. Best I can tell, things are going to get any better, and I definitely plan to be around for the end of the oil age.
23May
2005
The Case for Stem Cells

The American Economy Is Driven By Innovation

When I jump back in time to 1980, the American economy was in trouble. Interest rates were sky high approaching 20%, and inflation was a large concern. Ronald Reagan was elected to office with the promise of trickle down economics, and ‘peace through strength’. Reagan kept his promises and handed out huge tax cuts to the rich while building up the military against the Soviet Cold War threat. The end result was a sky rocketing budget deficit that at the time was unprecedented.

The picture did not look very pretty to be honest, but there was one thing that saved the day. THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY. Not by any particular governmental or political strategy, America saved itself by becoming the dominant country in the largest global revolution for the next 20 years. Companies such as Intel, Dell and Microsoft all began their meteoric rise in the early to mid 80’s. Although some companies eventually faltered, other leaders included Novell, Lotus, Ashton Tate, IBM and many other American companies.

But the boom did not just stop there. The 90’s brought us the internet revolution changing the way the world communicates, works, and gets information. Again the world is led by another host of American companies called Cisco, Google, eBay, Yahoo and many many others. I hope I’m not belaboring the point, but American companies had no equal during these times, and I shudder to think what would have happened to the American economy if the PC and Internet revolutions had been led by for example a Japanese and French company. I often think that these companies do not get the credit as the key drivers of the American economy.

But then it dawns on me. This is just the latest in a string of continuous innovations that have put America as the leader of the economic world and the world’s only superpower. Can anyone deny that our military strength is a function of our economic strength? Going back in time, American companies have led the world time and time again. Telecommunications, airplanes, and automobiles. I’m just spending a little time talking talking about each of these industries, but please take the time to wonder where our economy would be if these industries had not been created and led by American companies. I hope you come to the same conclusion that America’s success is based on our innovation.

Note that each innovation came at a time when one of our older industries was waning due to foreign competition. For example, the 70’s saw the decline of the once dominant automobile industryto the hands of the Japanese and other foreign competition. I could make an argument that the American’s government r0le should be to promote innovation and not protect old industries, but I won’t.

The innovation continues today. American companies are the clear world leaders in bio tech creating new drugs the help us live longer, healthier and happier lives. Although it is often the butt of many jokes, the economic impact of Viagra alone on our economy is staggering.

Now we come to stem cells. It could be the next key innovation and certainly has the potential if successful to drive the world’s economy for a good 20 years. Don’t we want to give American companies every advantage as we endeavor to invent the next world changing technogies? Should the government be doing anything to deter the progress of American innovation?

Is this what God wants?

The underlying reason for the entire stem cell controversy are religious. Our president and the Christian right would have us believe that God is morally against stem cell research. And hence our society will suffer somehow from the research. There isn’t a pretty way to say this. It is such hogwash.

God made us humans, and he made us differently. We alone as a race have the abiltiy to better our existence. A dog’s life is really not much different than it was 2000 years ago, but a human’s life has been enhanced in countless ways. It is innate in our being to learn more and improve our existence, and it is extremely hard to argue that this is anything but God’s will.

If anyone has been reading the Davinci Code or Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, both books focus on the collision of interests between religion and science. The books argue that there is really no conflict in interest and that each scientific understanding brings a little closer to understanding the creator of all things. When I think about all of the things we know against all of the things we don’t, I am still in awe of the complexity of life and the universe in which we exist. As times goes on, perhaps we will learn more about our Divine Creator through science, but I don’t think there should be anytime when we should slow down our rate of discovery.

My Prayer

Dear Lord. Please hear my prayer. I pray that your will be done, and that as humans we all strive to come to know you better on this earth before coming to spend eternity with you. I feel your will in all things, and I believe our thirst and curiosity for knowledge is your way of helping us to know you better.

Dear Lord. Help America be America by allowing us to innovate. Please help our leaders understand your will better and God Bless America.
16May
2005
Ana Bella’s New Clothes


The new digital cameras are truly amazing. Not only can they take pictures up to 7 megapixels, but they also can take full motion video. This was taken using Ana Bella’s Sony camera. Ana Bella had just finished a fairly large shopping spree, and she is trying on her new clothes in the hotel room in Buzios. I like this video because she is speaking both Portuguese and English.