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Attempt number 2138791 to restart this place...

Despite the amount of grad students I run into, the average folk I encounter or interact with is really still a normal working person. Some, if you're my age, are about 3-4 years into their career. Others have been at it for a while. Some, certainly, are still students. I've gotten tons of "so...what it is that a PhD do?" over the last few weeks, and I'm always not totally sure how to answer that the best.

I think one difficult thing with cross-background small talk is that people often find it difficult to relate. On the surface, there is very little similarity between my "job" as a PhD student and my peers who are full time programmers or are in management rolls. But actually, there are tons of similarities... We use the same tools (coding IDEs, compile time, SVN, putty, SSH, code queues, code merge, design paradigm, data migrations, long hours looking for the missing ";"), need to deal with the same kind of constraints (big projects with little manpower or resources, lack of expertise for self and/or support staff, having to chose between doing something myself because I know it best or delegating it off but needing them to learn a bunch of things first before you can get the results you need, making decisions myself vs passing the decision to higher-ups, pressing deadlines to my coworkers). Even reading and writing peer-review stuff has a parallel, in people needing to read technical documents and project reviews. Just need to find a better angle to present your work/thoughts/struggles and sometimes it becomes that much more relatable.

Sometimes, when I'm chatting with some of these people about work, we inevitably hit topics where I pretty know nothing about (I can only pretend that PhD is like a manager for so long), but that's really not that bad. I would have learned something interesting from the conversation if we start talking about things I don't know. The spirit of academics is to expand one's knowledge, after all, and I'd like to think this extends a bit beyond what MATLAB can afford me. Certainly one big thing I've been learning from grad cell, and various different socials that brings me outside of my little campus office.

Nexus'ed

Last week (actually, probably for the last 3 weeks), the tech world was focused on the release of a particular phone, the Nexus 5. I generally am not too focused on releases like this, but somewhere between general unhappiness at cell phone contract, my phone's likelihood to spontaneously combust crash, and the fact that tech nerds like myself just likes big numbers. After refreshing the inventory page hourly for 30 hours (minus sleep time, of course), Google allowed me to place an order.

Of course, Google doesn't have these phones right now. They're shipping in 3 weeks. They just released the website to placate people. But it worked. Much comparison has been made to the Google server crashes back for the Nexus 4 launch. All people wanted was to have their place in line. Instant relief, when I clicked on that Checkout button. I'm sure there's some bio-chem at work here. Dopamine and all that good stuff.

I'm not a big spender, and as I was reflecting after making the purchase, and the urgency to which I wanted to do this, I had to remind myself that it's just a phone. A nice, state-of-the-art phone with a mediocre camera and average battery life (rated 8.8 on Mobilesyrup review!), to which I've read half a dozens of reviews to, but still just a phone nevertheless. I was surprised at how strong my own consumeristic sentiment was, especially since I constantly use the excuse "grad student budget" to extract myself from making big/spontaneous purchases and live within means. For those 30 hours, I was reminded where my heart is. I remember laughing and shaking my head with disbelief when I heard about people lining up for hours for a gold iPhone 5S, but here I am, refreshing away, not any better.

Don't get me wrong. I was brought up with the mentality of "if you need something, buy it". I think people should buy technology that they'll be happy with. They should pour over reviews and make informed decisions. They should wait a few weeks to make sure the first batch of the product is actually decent. They should reflect on their purchases. I did that for my last laptop purchase. But at the end of the day, it's just a gadget.

A few weeks back, Grad Cell did a bible study on Matthew 6, so we have excerpts of this passage sticky-noted all over my house, so I've been reading it every time I brush my teeth. I don't consider myself materialistic, and whereas I like reading about technology, I've never been the type to line up to buy the latest-and-greatest. But the verse certainly struck home for me, now, especially with a defense as flimsy as "grad student funding".

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

- Matthew 6:19-24

Accumulation

Grad students in general complain a lot about grad school (see: PhD comics), but I think one undeniable fact about it is the accumulation of knowledge. I worked for a prof during one of my co-op terms, and he's now applying for a Canadian Research Chair, which is pretty cool. One of the requirements for the CRC is that he had to give a seminar on his target application, so I decided to drop in on the seminar.

Not that much of the seminar was that new to me. I've seen them either in his course that I took, or when I was co-op'ing. Certainly, having a stronger algorithms, machine learning and robotics background, I can appreciate the ideas and models more, and ended up talking to him at the end, pointing out different algorithms that is probably worth trying. Felt super weird, telling a prof that I've got some ideas for him to try.

I think a big part of growing up is that we don't see that we're growing up. I still refer to my parents as the "adults" and us as the "kids". PhD has been tough because really, my prof is training us to be her peer (never going to happen), and the responsibilities and expectations are gradually shifting to me. But that's what real life is like as well. A reminder to raise to the responsibilities and expectations set before us.

As a side note, sometimes I get asked what PhD is like. I've come to describe it as this:

• Undergrad - Your prof asks you a question...then he answers it
• Masters - Your prof asks you a question...then you answer it
• PhD - You prof looks at you. You ask yourself a question. Then you answer it

That, and I point them to PhD comics. 

Start of an amazing race

Joanna is a fan of the show Amazing Race, and has on occasion noted that it’d be fun to be part of something like that. Though, the chances of that is pretty low, given that neither of us are fans of the camera. As such, I thought it would be nice if I set up something similar for her to go through. Nothing big, maybe a few things to find, some tasks to complete, some places to go to.

I decided to separate the Race into three components: Joanna's Toronto house, Toronto people, and Waterloo people. 

Toronto House Scavenger Hunt (Sat)
This was fairly easy to set up. I hid several items in her house, and had her search for it. Some of the more interesting items included:

• A can of Campbell soup under her computer desk - For some random minor anniversary (like 2 years and 5 months or something like that), we bought some food at the local grocery store and went over to her place, intending to cook. However, this is during that crazy November 2012 storm and power went out at her place. Luckily, we bought emergency food: a can of soup. Unluckily, the microwave and the oven didn't work because the power was out. Thus, the dinner was unmicrowaved canned soup. The only reason why I knew that wouldn't give us food poisoning is because the UWO guys did it all the time. If any of those guys happen to be reading this, I formally apologize for that one time where I renounced your practice of not using the microwave when it was just around the corner at Taylor.
• A University of Waterloo teddy bear with a shirt that says "Someone at Waterloo loves me" - A while ago, she got me a similar bear from McMaster. It seemed almost like regifting if I just got her the same thing back, so I hid it behind some other stuff animals that she has. Except for she found it randomly, way ahead of schedule. That took some quick improvising on my part.
• Fundamental Nursing - I hid a note in one of her nursing textbooks. The clue pointing to it was encoded by a shifted alphabet cypher that she figured out...of course, I proceeded to misspell the name of the textbook in the cypher. Good thing it was close enough. 

Now that I've made her run around a bit, I had planted the last clue so that she ends up calling one of her friends...

Toronto People Meeting ups (Sun to Fri)
 I met up with several of her friends, of either people she grew up with, or people she's became close with over the span of university. I was only able to include a handful (I did want to propose relatively soon, ya know) of people, but it largely involved me letting them know that Joanna will call them in some general time period, and that they should arrange to meet up in another time period, and when they do, she is to be handed some clues that leads to yet another people. 

A fair bit of running around for her. But it sounded like it was relatively interesting. This lasted two weeks, where she met up with 4 groups of people.

Waterloo Events (Sat)
I scheduled her events around two weekends that she would be back at town. She worked at Mikey's when she was younger, so we got her to clean, so that was kind of amusing. The big event here though, is a photo scavenger hunt, where she had to sift through Facebook photos. That took quite a while. 

Her family is also big into dumpling folding and board games, so I asked her sister to host such an event...then crashed it. It was her sister's birthday earlier in the week, so we thought it would be funny to show up with a cake in the middle of their party. Our insiders worked out well. 

Proposal (Sun)
After church and lunch, we started the last segment. For her to get her next clue, I told her that she had to beat me at a video game. She chose Puzzle Fighter, and proceeded to wipe the floor with me. And here I thought we'd be playing it for a while...

Her clues led her to E5, where a bottle of Green Tea Frappuccino (melted and shoved into a bottle) was waiting in a fridge in the student lounge. I had bought this on Sat, and got it into an old Sprite glass bottle I had. Unfortunately, I used her Starbucks card so she gets points, and I didn't realize that she gets alerted when she earned a new drink on my purchase. Another moment of quick thinking was needed when she asked me the next day (I rarely get Starbucks). 

While in Japan, we had joked that the Arashiyama bamboo forests would've been a perfect place to propose. If I had done it with a green tea latte (it was pretty good) in one hand and the ring in the other, and had Kobe steak afterwards, it would've been amazing engagement. 

Waterloo Park, unfortunately, was the closest forest I had available to me. Before we started dating, we had chatted at length about the idea. These chatting happened 1) in a house I no longer lived in, 2) in a parking lot, and 3) in a playground at Waterloo Park. Obviously, the most romantic location out of these is the parking lot the playground, so the clues let her to the playground. It was pretty busy there, so we eventually moved on to a soccer field. 

We chatted for a bit, and I felt that it was appropriate to remind ourselves Eph 5, so we did a bit of reading. And talked about tangential things. And tangented. It was rather nerve-wracking. When it really came down to it, I was on my knee for a good 5-10 minutes, asking her if she was ready for it. Inside the ring box was actually my Iron Ring (which we also joked about), which we laughed at for a bit before I pulled out the actual ring from my wallet. 

We went to dinner afterwards, with some of the Waterloo people that helped me pull this off, at Golf's. Not quite Kobe, but steak nevertheless. 

Oh, right. She said yes.

Road to higher education

The decision to continue onto PhD has not been a trivial nor straightforward one. Nor should it be. I didn't see myself facing this decision, but I suppose most people don't know where they'll end up when they first stepped onto their university campus.

There are many reasons on why I should do it. Wanting to stay in biomedical R&D. I'm actually starting to get the topics I'm involved in now. The research topic is good and worthwhile and applicable. It'll be needed to climb the corporate ladder. Continue my current research and not assume that the grass is greener on the other side. A opened door that really isn't that common. It'll likely be difficult to come back to school once I start working, due to financial and social obligations. Poor job market. But there also many reasons why I shouldn't do it. It feels like I'm copping out of job applications. One shouldn't default into a PhD. Higher education can limit certain career options. Most people can find a job with 4 years of university, so the benefit of the extra 6 years is questionable. I wouldn't want to be typecasted into a "head in the cloud" academic, who can't do anything practical because all I know is research and theory. Rather not become prideful and egotistical in the letters behind my name. I've been in Waterloo (and of school in general, for that matter) for a rather long time already, and it'd likely be good to make a full break with the place. Most of my friends have graduated and moved on.

And the argument continues. Consulting n number of people results in n number of different opinions. Thinking about the future leads to dozens more what-if situations. The more one tries to grasp onto the future, the more the uncertainty of the future grasps you.

At the end of the day, the tipping factor was an unexpected one: my faith. In the midst of all the career calculations and thinking about future plans, I reflected on how stepping into biomedical engineering, to begin with, was a faith-driven decision. That my Masters degree was a faith-driven decision. And so the next step should also be a faith-driven decision. Beyond my original decisions that brought me into biomedical, and a desire to innovate and advance our medical field, I have realized that perhaps this is another calling as well.

We often talk about how our faith should spill over into other aspects of our lives. As the fundamentalists retreated from the "toxic effect" of modern society, a key few chose to become high profile apologists in order to maintain the Christian voice, but the retreat led to further animosity between the camps. Today, everything is politicized. One can hardly even eat fried chicken without facing some accusations. Christians and non-Christian argue about everything. It is fashionable to take potshots at the Christian mentality and belief, as it is easy to point at Christians and accuse them of bigotry, which itself is an intolerant thought. There will always be a camp within all fraction that take the headlines. Extremest Christians. Radical Muslim. Antagonistic Atheists. And so forth. The Internet has done much to add to the fire. Hardly any group can claim perfection, and the Christians ought to be the first to stand down. But this is another discussion for another time.

Christians have somehow garnered a reputation for being anti-science, a reputation that people like Francis Collins [1] and Tim Keller [2] are pushing back against in matters such as evolution. Although some articles (citation needed - can't remember where I read that from anymore) report that the number of scientist subscribing to the Christian faith are indeed rising, the number of Christians in higher educations still continue to be lacking. I feel that it is important that Christianity remains a viable option for "intellectuals", whatever that may entail in the eyes of detractors, and not for the "backward". That this action in itself is an act of apologetics. That added a good weight to the should pile, and so here I go.

Interesting readings (hardly the only point of views, but articles for more science-y people):
[1] Collins, F. S. The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief. 2006. Free Press
[2] Keller, T. Creation, Evolution and Christan Laypeople. 2012. The BioLogos Foundation. Link.

So what - Resurrection

For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

- 1 Corinthians 15.16-19 (NIV)

With the passing of Easter, we celebrated the death and resurrection of Christ. An odd celebration, to be sure, I don't know of any other religion that holds up the death of their head leadership figure like Christians do. I was at the Lincoln Road's Easter Friday service, and they did a good job drawing parallels between OT occurrences and NT ones. Such as Eden vs Gethsemane. And talked about a story that made the sacrifice of Christ a bit more "modern" and easier to understand. I wasn't at Lincoln's Easter Sunday service, since Simply had their first baptismal, so I didn't see how the finishing of the story went, but I've noticed that we often skip over the "so what" factor.

Why do we celebrate the death of this man? Why don't we look more carefully at Christ's compassion or teachings? People generally agree that Jesus is a good teacher. Why not talk about that? Paul talks about this in 1 Cor 15. He states that our faith is futile, and that we are to be pitied more then all men. What is he talking about?

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

- Romans 6.23 (NIV) 

So sin and death goes hand in hand. In Genesis 3, God blocks the way to the Tree of Life because Adam sinned, and to prevent the sinning from staying with them forever, He prevented them from living forever. We sin (break the law), therefore the punishment (application of justice) is death. Death is the final word. Nothing came after that. In the OT, substitution with animals are allowed, but that required the continual sacrifice of animals, because we will always continue to fall short of God's standards.

In NT, Christ stepped forward as the sacrifice. So His death is important because we paid our punishment. His resurrection is important then, because sin and death are linked, and by surpassing death, Jesus surpassed sin. So if He didn't resurrect, then the system really hasn't changed, we still fall short of God with no way of making up for it. Our faith would be futile, and we would still be working our salvation.

Paul goes one step further. He says that if we don't have Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. There is no purpose in in prayer (without Christ, the connection between humans and God would be limited to a select few), or living a self-controlled, self-less life. Without Christ, we should be going for money and comfort because there is nothing after our time on earth, so might as well eat, drink and be merry, while we still can. Why be disciplined if we're all going to die anyway?

But there is more then this life. Christ has ensured it.

Application of justice

A while ago, a news story came out on CBC, of a lady that handled OHIP cheques for doctors. Instead of depositing them in the doctors' accounts, she channeled it into her own account, stealing over $400k, and had a lavish lifestyle. In the article, she was quoted crying, terrified that she would go to jail. Curious to see what people would think about someone stealing from the 'rich doctors', I scrolled down and read the comments...

...and perhaps unsurprisingly, people were not sympathetic, and the general consensus is that she should pay it back (which, of course, she can't) and that she should go to jail, for stealing from the public. No pity at all (and perhaps she doesn't deserve any, given that she spent the money on herself), and in many cases, stated that the 9 month jail sentence she was handed to be too lenient. 10 years, they cried. Justice must be served, says them.

Justice and grace
Once in a while, I would think about the principle of grace. Even though this is a while collar crime, and evidently, didn't hurt the doctors enough that they didn't even notice this until after 4 years, people were outraged that someone could've done something like this, and that "The bottom line was ... some things you just can’t do. No matter how sorry we feel for people personally, we have to uphold the law as it exists." The public agrees that the law must be upheld, regardless of how much the perpetrator insists that the crime wasn't that bad.

I think that's the point that people miss when they ask why a loving God punishes the unrighteous. It isn't that God enjoys dishing out punishment. What parent enjoys punishing their children? But a God that judges to perfectly uphold the Law to ensure perfect justice must punish the perpetrators (else justice is not served). So how can one shout "justice must be served", and still stand against punishment from the Judge?

Perhaps they feel that the laws outlined by God is false and invalid. But even if we don't look at the greatest commandments of the Christian (Love your God, love your neighbour), people agree that there are a common moral standard that people uphold. For example, tenets that's common between Christianity and other faiths, such as Buddhism. But we can never do enough.

But what if someone paid back the $400k and took the jail time on her behalf? But it is precisely that no one is righteous that we need to be bailed out.

Backtracking

I think a good trait of leadership is to acknowledge your mistakes. To accept that we're not perfect, after all, and being humble enough to listen to criticism and to know your limitations.

Communities past
Over the years, co-op has brought me to many cities. Along with it, I got my hands involved in many churches and communities. With that, my email got added to numerous mailing lists that I left intact so I can hear about what's going on with various communities that I was once part of.

A while ago, I got an interesting email from my church in Toronto. It seemed to have involved a pastor criticizing some members of a fellowship for attending normal fellowship events, but apparently skipped fellowship when it was a prayer meeting. It turned out that the said members did not skip, but was simply late. The pastor later on apologized when he found out what happened. To a bunch of high school kids. Don't see that everyday.

Qualifications of an Elder
But the story that's been burned into my mind is one I read a long time ago. Don't remember where anymore, but it went along the lines of something like this: there was a teenage son who's dad was an elder at their local church. The teen did his share of teenage rebellion. Can't remember what he did, but it was probably something serious. Although the dad has tried to speak to his son on several occasions, he wasn't able to get him to listen.

Finally, he sat his son down and told him this: "I know that I can't make you see things my way. I can't force you to listen. But if you continue to behave like this, I am going to have to quit my post as an elder."

The son understood the implications immediately. The two verses that applied to this situation would be...

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. 

- Ephesians 6.4

[A man that desires to be an elder] must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 

- 1 Timothy 3.4-6

The dad tried to follow Ephesians, and upon failing, risks violating 1 Timothy. The thing that shocked the son the most is that his dad takes the state of his son more serious than his reputation, is acknowledging that his life isn't perfect, and is acknowledging that he isn't perfect. It was enough to make the teen reconsider his ways.

Recognizing that we're not perfect, and putting our pride on hold, is always difficult. But it is every part of growing, being a Christian, and Biblical living.

MATLAB

And MATLAB crashed (seg fault) at 2.40am. I think it's a sign to go to sleep.

And Canucks won. A Canadian team making finals for the first time in four years. I'll refrain from commenting too much, just another bandwagon jumper. Haha.

News comments

After reading news articles on CBC or Globe and Mail, or wherever, I typically spend some time to skim through some of the comments as well, just to see what people have to say. A few things I've noticed, or stood out in my mind...

General Comments

• I've been listening to some Youtube bands recently, like Boyce Avenue, Kurt Schneider or Kina Grannis...and appreciate the lack of auto-tune in their songs. If you think a given group sucks, I don't know why you would go to their page to obnoxiously point that out. No one is making you listen to it...  trolling doesn't really get anyone anywhere.

Canadian Politics

• General disdain - People on opposing sides really don't like each other. I've read countless comments about how dumb Liberals are or how stupid Conservatives are. Canada has 33 million people. It's not easy to manage that much people. Give them a break sometimes. Also, don't expect to have more public services when you're clamoring for for tax breaks. At least they're trying to do something about it. Someone on the forums noted that the boards are becoming increasingly mean spirited over the years. I can't help but agree.
• Party leaders - Harper isn't the most likeable person, but honestly, no one else could've done better during the Recession. Ignatieff isn't the most likeable person either, but he happens to have more education than more of us. I'm not a Liberal, but I'm glad he's staying in Canada to teach.
• Voter apathy - 61.4% voter turnout. As I was leaving high school, one of the biggest things drilled into me by my World History teacher is that I need to work towards being a good citizen. That means I should read the news and vote, as a duty of democratic citizen. If you're not voting, you really shouldn't be complaining. I was happy to note that more university students came out to vote this year. Not so impressed about lack of attention that party platforms gave towards students and research, but that's another rant altogether.
• Long-form census being long - Is it really hard to believe that tax dollars are distributed according to census results? How about public services and policy making? Sigh...

 British Monarchy

• Queen Elizabeth II - The amount of bashing Canadians have of the Monarchy is shocking. No Canadian taxpaying money goes to England, so why are people so upset that that the Queen is our head of state? She's cooler than our recent arrays of Prime Ministries anyway, as a representative. Being a Commonwealth country is part of Canadian culture. How could people so quick to reject immigrant cultures and promote "Canadian culture" and be so quick to bash one of our biggest culture symbols?
• Governor General - I didn't really follow much of Michaelle Jean, but when David Johnston was appointed GG, I looked up his background...to find that he was actually pretty ownage (Order of Canada, was dean of law at UWO, principal of McGill and president of UW, among other things). When Harper nominated Johnston, he noted that Johnston was among "the best of Canada." It's hard not to agree. I think it's pretty awesome to have someone of his caliber representing our country.

Religion
It seems like people just enjoys going to these pages and rant against religious intolerance, without realizing that they're behaving intolerantly themselves, against religion. Isn't no faith a religion itself?

• Muslim extremists - I am friends with some Muslims. They're pretty nice people. Extremists happens everywhere. Atheists (ie Stalin), Christians (ie Ireland)...apparently, there's even Buddhist extremists. 
• Anti-Christian sentiments - Unsurprisingly, I spend a large amount of time browsing Christian articles and pay more attention to moral/theological impactful news articles. Like the Rapture claims, or the Bountiful polygamy case. I found it surprising that people would log onto a newspaper like Christian Post and bash general Christianity. Makes me wonder how much they actual know about Christians  and what causes these sentiments.

Perhaps too much of an opinion piece today. 

Elections

Motivation
High school education was mostly a blur (actually, undergrad classes were a blur too, now that I'm thinking about them). I remember some minor details about organic chemistry. A bit of physics. Some biology. Almost nothing about calculus (XD). But in terms of direct life impact, Social Studies has had the heaviest direct lasting impact on me: regular reading of the news, and being a more aware citizen. Social Studies has repeatedly attempted to drill into my head that voting and being an aware citizen is a responsibility of a citizen in a democratic country. Democracy only really works when its members participate. Voting is a privilege, like drivers licenses. When I voted in the 2008 election, that was my biggest motivation to vote.

But since, I've gained another reasoning: my faith. I've realized that Evangelicals tend to crowd amongst ourselves. "What? Unchristianly influences? Lets pull out"...as William Craig noted in his article:

Who among evangelicals can stand up to the great secular or naturalistic or atheistic scholars on their own terms of scholarship? Who among evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does the evangelical mode of thinking have the slightest chance of becoming the dominant mode in the great universities of Europe and America that stamp our entire civilization with their spirit and ideas?

...For the sake of greater effectiveness in witnessing to Jesus Christ Himself, as well as for their own sakes, evangelicals cannot afford to keep on living on the periphery of responsible intellectual existence.

- Charles Malik (Quoted in In Intellectual Neutral)

[...our seminaries] produce pastors, not scholars, is that it is precisely our future pastors, not just our future scholars, who need to be intellectually engaged and to receive this scholarly training. Machen's article was originally given as a speech entitled "The Scientific Preparation of the Minister." A model for us here ought to be a man like John Wesley, a Spirit-filled revivalist and at the same time an Oxford-educated scholar. Wesley's vision of a pastor is remarkable: a gentleman, skilled in the Scriptures and conversant with history, philosophy, and the science of his day.

- William Craig (In Intellectual Neutral)

What he is trying to say is...Christians are so focused on just a single field (spiritual stuff, for example) and not about science or archeology, that we're propelling the stereotype that Christianity is scientifically backwards and not intellectually viable in today's day and age. As a result, when Christians pull out of scientific debates (and, given the context of this post, political/philosophical debates as well), which simply allows the "rest of the world" to continue as is, without Christian influence, which just allows the world to become more secularized. That's the reason he gives for his participation in religious, scientific and philosophical debates. That's also the reason why we should go out and vote.

Details about the Election
Since I'd be in Waterloo anyway between terms, I thought it would be interesting to sign up to work at the May 2 election. Coming from Electrical Engineering (at Waterloo, ECE is like 50% asian, 45% brown), you don't often walk into a room that's 90% filled with old Caucasian retirees...but I guess that's the typical demographics that can work on a Monday election. Maybe that's why they stuck me at the UWP polling station. Haha.

You should've gotten a Voter Information Card in your mail that tells you what your voting station is, based on your home address. Vote there. If you're not in your home region on May 2 (like myself), you could still register in KW, as long as you have a photo ID and proof of local residency (so like a utility bill or something). If your KW residency region is voting in UWP (you can check here), you can use your VIC as proof. Though, I'm guess that stuff will get lost in the mail between terms, so I'm not really expecting that much people using VICs as proof of residency at my polling station. Thus, the best thing to do is to participate in advance polling at your home region (which starts today, till the coming Monday).

Links and information
Rick Mercer (of "Talking to Americans" fame): video link. Apparently his videos are the instigator of "vote mobs" that's been popping up around universities all over the country. It's a short video with a simple message: university students need to go out and vote. He's right though. Not that much platforms addresses us, the university students. And no one cares about NSERC (funding agency for university research). Sighs.

In case you didn't want to look at everyone's platforms and figure out who's standing for what, CTV and Globe and Mail both have a platform summary of the major parties. And if you happen to be in Waterloo on May 2, your vote is pretty critical. Peter Braid, the current Kitchener-Waterloo MP, won by just 73 votes (though, it says 17 votes in the Waterloo Record) in 2008.

Elections Canada links: Information for students. IDs needed for voter registration at polling day (also applies if you're not in your home region).

Okay. Enough soap box for a day.

Social justice

Social justice is always one of those things that sits in the back of my mind, that I wish I didn't have to think about. Never sure what I should be doing in these circumstances. Would it be best to walk on by? Offer him some change? Offer to get him some food? Give him some attention?

It takes active effort to approach a panhandler and talk to him instead of walking on by like everyone else. I've read the stories. I know some of them are just victims of their circumstances. Still, it takes a lot of effort to remind myself that they're not there because they want to, but because they have to. Still. It's hard not to think of something negative when you see the same guy there, year after year, and the many negative stories I've heard about people's encounters likes to lodge itself in my mind as well.

Snowing in April
It started snowing again here suddenly. After lunch today, I encountered two such people. At first, I thought about walking around (the first guy). Didn't really want to think about it or deal with it. I had a lot of things I gotta deal with. But...

I dropped some money into his hands, "get something warm, alright?" (perhaps would've been better to actually bought something, but oh well, in a rush), and walked by the Subway that he was sitting in front of. 30 seconds later, in front of Williams, I ran into another guy. Well. I guess it's only fair if I forked over some stuff here too. Apparently the church/shelter he was staying at closed when it got warmer, so the sudden cold/snowing was a bad turn for them. "oh...sorry to hear that. hope things work out for you". I remembered this guy. He was telling me about his plans to get back onto his feet, a few years back. But I didn't comment on that. We chatted for a bit. Then I walked quickly to my E5 office, wanting to get out of the cold, wanting to finish my report that's due soon, wanting to just do my duty to the poor and move on.

Reflecting on Elena and Phil's posts, I find myself wondering if I did it more to alleviate my guilty feelings that I know I would get if I just walked on, or if I actually cared about reflecting His glory on this field. Sucks.

Isaiah 6

In my opinion, the most intense calling of an individual happens in Isaiah 6. God mosying around in the Jerusalem temple with a bunch of angels, with special effects everywhere? Atonement, and a possible Trinity reference? Yup. Beats Paul getting knocked off a horse and blinded. Beats Moses talking a tree on fire. Beats Ezekiel...wait. Never mind. You can't really beat Ezekiel...

But yes. The most amusing part is probably verse 8.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
   And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” 

- Isaiah 6.8

It's not hard to imagine God just looking around, pretending not to see Isaiah, and Isaiah just jumping up and down, waving his hands. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm here, I'm here! Send me!" (Maybe I watch too much anime...). A good reminder for myself that He calls the willing, and equips them to become the ready, just like what He did here for Isaiah.

CCF Sharing Night (W11)

Once again, the minutes of the recent sharing night is here. I will note that my minutes were more designed for people who were at sharing night itself, and so I made it more concise, more to remind people who were there. I stuck it in Google Docs this time because there were co-op people who wanted to be in the loop. So they were listening via laptop mic and reading the minutes at the same time. Haha. I first originally started taking minutes to loop co-op people in as well, so it's kind of nice to go back to that tradition.

• Link to the W11 minutes are here. It was assembled by myself (first half of the night), Jorge (second half of the night) and Josh Kung (random comments). Lasts until 4AM.
• For those of you who want more conclusive minutes, James' set is more detailed, found here. Lats until 1AM.

If you notice quality of minutes dropping off, I will point to the fact we ended at 4am, and are getting seriously old and starts losing focus earlier and earlier at night. =P

God makes it grow

One of the hardest lessons I had to learn as a serving Christian is that results will usually not come immediately. In WKTRM1/2A, a group of us, having benefited greatly from the fellowship, decided to take on Frosh Cell. Not really knowing what to do, 4 of us 2A'ers (Josh, Vanessa, Kevin, myself), as well as one upperyear (Betty), signed up to lead Frosh Cell and related events.

New Student Reception
I remember talking to my upperyear corespondent (Connie) for NSR, and she asked me what my overall vision for NSR was. I replied that, if even one person who didn't know about fellowship, walked by and stuck around for NSR, and came to fellowship because of that, it would've been worth the effort. I'll never know if anyone came to CCF because of NSR.

Frosh Cell
I think this is the question that all of us were asking ourselves at the end of the term. Did we make an impact? Were we helpful in making the fellowship more welcoming? How much of them learned and grow and had fun under our planning and programs?

I remember, when hearing that people of that year stopped attending fellowship (2nd year retainment ratio: 30%), or got into situations, we'd be asking ourselves if there was more we could've done. If we could've talked to them more. If there was some hint we overlooked. If we could've tried harder.

I remember seeing one of them later on and asking him why he doesn't attend fellowship anymore, and got a nasty respond. I remember telling myself that we can't be everything to everyone. I remember being shocked when I saw him again in fellowship, a few years later. God is working.

Graduation Dinner
Yet despite all the drama and situation. All the uncertainty and struggles. I realized that grad dinner was an encouragement to us alums as well. Knowing that the time we've poured into the "kids" has been used by God to grow them. One of the few times that God is gracious to show the fruits of our labour. I wonder if this is how my own upperyears felt when we made it too.

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe - as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

- 1 Corinthians 3.5-7

Congrats, 2011 grads.

Survival

Throughout undergrad, I found myself wondering if I'll survive. Make it through the tough hours and confusing math. Pass through school without getting getting owned. Not aiming for stellar marks, or anything. Get by, so I can do the stuff that comes a bit easier. Survival and desperation was always in the air. Engineering was hard.

We celebrated when we survived PHYS115. MATH212. ECE433. ECE370. ECE471. When we passed PDEng. When we got our Iron Ring.

Over the grad dinner weekend, I talked a bit with my peers. People who has been working for a year now. Shared stories of what we've learned. The difference between work and school. Long work hours. Difficult assignments. Tough deadlines. Reading through Proverbs, it's filled with verses like Prov 6.10. And we often forget that we were pulled through before.

I remember getting annoyed before. When we were in first year, they told us first year is the hardest. When we were in 3rd year, they said 3rd year is the hardest. When we were in fourth year, they said FYDP is the hardest. It never gets easier. It wasn't suppose to get easier.

But I think grad school (and FT work) is hard because you chose it. We chose to do grad school. We chose to work at Sandvine, or Deliotte, or Petro Canada. We chose Bell or Hydro One or Microsoft. Of course it's hard. We've never seen this stuff before. We've never applied these concepts in these ways before. But I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given... (Luke 19 - Parable of the Talent). We've received much. And more to come.

We're given much because He believes we can handle much. For those of you discouraged, press on.

Context

PSYCH studys
I was in the SLC and walked by one of those PSYCH study booths. As a fellow research, I try to stop by at these type of things and participate when I can, but usually, when I'm in the SLC, I'm in a rush and don't have the time to check them out, but I had some time yesterday. So I stopped and chatted with those guys a bit (they seemed kind of annoyed that they're not getting much N, thus causing poor confidence intervals) and offered to take their study. It turned out that their study was on chocolate eating. My job was to comment on the chocolate. Interesting study. I think I can handle that.

There's a part where I'm suppose to memorize a 8-digit number to distract me from the chocolate. Two girls approached the booth when the examiner was telling me this, and quickly shuffled away with "eww, memorization..." Well...actually...the study is on chocolate eating...they heard the examiner's comments out of context. Actually, the 8-digit number didn't matter at the end.

Reading in context
Often, when I pick up a journal paper (yes! Viterbi-powered HMM sequence clustering of Gaussian motion distributions! Motion segmentation with dynamic programming and time warping! Intuitive drag-and-pin inverse kinematics algorithm for animation and motion capture!), I have roughly 2/3 of a page to get up to speed on the Related Works (context building). But even that is hard at times, because these know their work so well that they don't understand what it's like not to understand. The only papers I feel vaguely understanding is perhaps the ones I read the actual related works papers cited, to understand the rationale of the article I'm actually reading

Bible reading in context
Bible reading is like that. You can't read a chapter from a letter in isolation, but we often do. I think, it's often too easy to forget that because we're so used to conducting Bible studies in small chunks. Knowing the context and the background often serves to color the passage appropriately.

For example...knowing that Romans is a "teaching" letter, and that 1 John is a "encouragement" letter allowed me to suggest to a friend wanted to get more into the Bible 1 John as a book easier to be understood, even though they both revolve talking about God's love and how we should think about it. Knowing that Paul is pretty Calvinistic (predestination) and that John is all about love and Jesus dying for the whole world (unlimited atonement) also led me to suggest 1 John as an easier book to understand. (Calvinists reading this, please don't hurt me =P)

Anyways. Read in context. I feel like this is something that everyone knows, but this post was suppose to be published before BBW did its OT/NT context meetings (which I'm totally behind in). But yes. Context is good.

CCF Sharing Night (F10)

Minutes for the Fall 2010 sharing night. A large majority of it, anyway. Towards the end, I lost focus due to fatigue and my batteries was low, and stopped typing. Whew...


AT (7.50p)

• Outreach ministry
• Went out to talk to random people -> Talked to a Buddhist. Learned about Buddhism. Was scary when first started talking, but got easier as time went on
• "Break my heart for what break yours"

JC (7.54p)

• Worship coordinator
• First year Optometry
• Never knew how to share the Gospel, but tried. Felt good, doing God's work. Want to be more comfortable talking to non-Christians

 
ML (7.59p)

• Difficult term: School was hard, lived with people who likes to party
• Realize that faith has to be active 
• need to be pushed to maintain faith
• If not, it sometimes doesn't feel Christian anymore. Life is routine
• Cling onto your faith

MC (8.02p)

• 1040 rally: "If you have nothing worth dying for, then you have nothing worth dying for"
• God placed certain people in his life. People who needed the Gospel.
• People who pursuit school or pride or whatnot -> realized need to pray for campus
• Frosh cell: Believes that God is raising a powerful generation, going to do amazing things
• Stay prayer focused

DT (8.08p)

• God is in complete control
• We like control and certainty. Trying to maintain control everything caused a bit of a burnout
• Family
• Don't get a chance to talk to them much
• Sister was talked to by a Christian
• now open to asking questions about Christianity
• Dad does not think much of Christianity
• but been going to church for a year
• God is working, even if we don't see it

DY (8.13p)

• Originally, did not like CCF/Waterloo
• Felt different in CCF, didn't like their way of doing things
• Didn't feel fitting into Waterloo
• Realized God is at work, and it's up to us to join Him. The current generation that is passionate, we didn't do anything to get that. God did
• God is at work! Think about the story of the... 
• bleeding woman 
• centurion
• feeding of 5000. 
• "Only God can, and God will." Our ministries isn't ours to begin with. It's all God's. God will do amazing things, if we are willing

M (8.22p)

• Went to C4C for a while, for a term
• Joined CCF again. It was hard, didn't know much people. 
• But volleyball and worship helped reintegration

D (8.24p)

• Lived with a person who was formerly Christian. 
• Wanted to talk to him about his lifestyle, serious rebuking. 
• But God told him that there is a better way. 
• One day, suddenly, his roommate initiated the convo. 
• They prayed, and his life changed
• God holds onto His children
• Another non-Christian saw something different in him, is now nvestigating
• Ephesians 2 (living as children of light ... [note: this is what he said, but I may have recorded the wrong passage. The children of light is Eph 4])
• We all have a lot of friends who claim to be Christian, but still need to be transformed by God

AW (8.31p)

• CCF is a group of people wholove each other, obeyed Matthew 28, spread the Gospel and are salt and light
• Before CCF started, UW had lots of Christian. Some are solid (firm in faith). Some are round (easily influenced). Some are confused (not sure what they believed in). Got together, prayed, community
• CCF was founded in the early 70s, by Terrence Lau
• Why do we need CCF? 
• Diverse background. 
• Breeding ground of thoughts. 
• Place where professionalism is nurtured
• Campus today: Tough, adventurous, stressful, secular, competitive, rowdy
• CCF today needs to be: united and have one voice
• Vision of CCF:
• University is not just a place to gain knowledge. 
• It is also a place to search for truth. 
• A place to train them to serve the church. 
• A place to evangelize. 
• A place to build up Christian character. 
• A place to network and build community. 
• CCF needs to be a city on a hill, not a ghetto.
• Bring CCF back to home churches

 
MW (8.42p)

• Rapped/poem

-- Break. Missed some people -_- --

GL (9.28p)

• Bible memorization was good
• Sometimes, it's 2 step forward, 1 step back...but it could also be 1 step forward, 2 steps back
• Jeremiah [note: didn't catch the chapter reference]: People don't actually turn to God...except when we're in trouble. Would you treat a friend like that?
• Are we cheapening God's grace? Don't do it. Don't take grace lightly. Reflect.
• Colossians [note: didn't catch this one either -_-]: Don't settle. Keep walking. Keep pursuiting Christ

CM (9.39p)

• School is boring and stressful
• Dad is agnostic. 
• Always seems disinterested in his family. 
• Difficult to reach out to him. 
• Spontaneously told him about Christ. 
• You cannot claimed to have loved someone unless you've told them about Christ

Z (10.01p)

• Transition to university has been okay
• Made lots of friends. Burdened to share
• Called to spread the Gospel

S (10.05p)

• Overall, feels that God has a plan for him
• Something special about CCF

MW (10.07p)

• Originally disappointed with job
• But it was nice to have co-op in Waterloo -> met lots of people
• Was told that he lacked passion
• So focused on mortal things, why don't we have passion on bigger things? "If you are not going to risk anything, you're not going to gain anything"
• Find a passion in God

JQ (10.13p)

• Continue to be used by God. God brought you to UW for a reason.
• Learned and challenged lots in and by CCF
• "As I have loved you, love one another" - 1 John
• Jesus showed us the way to love: servant leadership (John 15.13)
• Passion: "willingness to die for" in latin
• Remember your leaders. 
• Sometimes it's good and we can see fruits and results. 
• But can also burn out and be burdened, and that's why we rely on God. 
• Encourage your leaders
• After every storm is the sun

 

-- Break 2 --

 
JC (10.37p)

• We're not the ones that make it happen. God is
• God doesn't need us, He could've done it all Himself
• Made it this way so we depend on Him
• Committee...wasn't sure if he wanted to do it, but it came up a few times:
• Sunday message: Harvest is many, but worker is few
• Sunday school: Jesus sending out disciples
• Youth group: 1 Timothy 3 (Responsibility of the overseer)
• Wanted to do Bible studies, from upper year showing that there's a lot to get from the Bible
• The fact that a 2000 year old message can still be powerful is compelling
• Had passion, but no training. Those are times when you really need to depend on God
•  People lost the passion of living sacrificially for God over time
• But came back in recent years
• Want people to want to know the Gospel, Scripture
• School and academic advancement is important
• But so is using your talents for the Kingdom

D (10.49p)

• Hard to get in touch with people from home (HK) due to time zone
• School is hard
• Realized that she can rely on God
• Life can be frustrating at times
• Was sent people to help her through hard times
• His grace is enough

S (10.56p)

• Want to be more discipline in chasing after God, else will become complacent
• Got sucked into materialistic mentality of HK
• Why am I storing treasure here instead of in heaven?
• Discipline

L (11.01p)

• Wasn't sure if she should come to Waterloo (exchange student)
• Encouraged by sharing
• 4 months seems like a long time before coming, but it's been good

L (11.04p)

• Wanted to get deeper with relationship with Christ -> joined a bunch of CCF things
• But didn't feel any different
• Was pointed to a book on legalism
• God reveals Himself to who He wants to, not by our powers, but by His

B (11.06p)

• People didn't challenge his faith when he was growing up
• University is much more difficult than high school
• We need God

H (11.10p)

• CCF is humbling. Lots of people looking after each other
• Got really involved. Learned lots

RL (11.20p)

• See many professing Christians who don't act Christians
• Liked Waterloo when she visited -> decided to go to Waterloo
• HK friends made fun of her for wanting to go to Waterloo
• Friendship here seems more real

 
J (11.25p)

• How do I know that I love God?

Boundaries of apologetics

Summer of 2010 started with an encounter with Mormons, which emphasized the importance of apologetics and knowing the details about my faith. It led directly to the start of NNC (or BBW, or just Apologetics cell, even though our premise isn't really just on apologetics). After several months of apologetics and a few presentations, I was a bit amused to note that the end of Fall 2010 was marked by a case where apologetics just didn't work.

I was working with someone on a project the other day, when he started talking about religion. He talked a bit about meaning of life, then proceed to note that the Christian God is insane. Curious, I asked him to expand a bit. He pointed to the Old Testament, and the purging of Canaan. Oyy...

As the conversation went on, I found out that he grew up in a Catholic school, taught by people who simply told him to ignore apparent contradictions between OT and NT, and that didn't make sense to him. After telling him that I agree with him, that one should think about their faith and be active in figuring things out, we launched into things:

God of the Old Testament
I pointed out that major destructions of people groups were not unwarned: Noah was warned and had a chance to tell other people (Genesis 6), Canaan's purging was also forewarned (Genesis 15.16). Sodom and Gomorrah's issues were described as an outcry...other people were complaining about how bad the situation in those cities are (Genesis 18.20)! To top it off, Abraham argued for the cities, saying that there must be some good people there (Genesis 18.22-33), where God agreed that He will not destroy good people. I brought up that God was ready to destroy Israel (but still want to give humans a chance) when they worshiped the golden calves in Exodus 32 but relented. God didn't kill anyone there, Moses did (Exodus 32.25-29)!

I pointed to the healing of Naaman, a general of the enemies of Israel (2 Kings 5.1-19) and Nineveh, a city that pillaged and burned Israel. (Jonah 3). I stopped around there, even though I had more examples still. My point has been made already, and I realized one fundamental assumption I've made here, in my interpretation of the OT: the sovereignty of God. And although I've placed examples of God being merciful to contrast his view of an angry God, our difference in fundamental assumption meant we could not meet at a common ground.

I was just told ignore things that didn't make sense. How could that be?
Ah. Apologetics. I explained to him what apologetics is, and that most people don't bother with it, but that's not the proper attitude. Just as we investigate scientific principles that we believe, we should also examine the what our faith says as well. We talked about dinosaurs. Young Earth creationism and Genesis 1-2. Big bang. Evolution. Archeological evidence of Biblical events. Philosophy behind translation of the Bible. I mentioned that I grew up believing science, and things had to fit together before I can whole-heartedly accept this. I admit, I have not been able to figure everything out. Evolution and big bang arin't exactly easy concepts to grasp. But I'm at an okay place right now in terms of that.

...but how can you believe all this?
He asked me, what if God was just a made up concept and all these things just happened to have fit together?

Well...Voltaire believed that. One quote attributed to Voltaire is "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Enlightenment era philosophies. Sure. He advanced the principles of Locke (Tabula Rasa, "the blank slate"), in that we are fundamentally bad people, but society forces us to conform to become good people, and that we can shape people's behaviour. Later on, Freud reinforces that idea, with the id/ego/superego.

I subscribe more to Hobbe's ideas (the Social Contract). We agree that people are fundamentally bad, but it is rather difficult make someone good. Can we actually just colour in the blank slate and make someone good? Or do we need a central governance to make sure people behave, implying that people cannot be expected to be good when left to their own devices? It's evident what our modern society believes...communism failed (a whole different discussion altogether) and democracy, which is an implementation of the Social Contract, is widespread. Our own society believes people are fundamentally bad.

But this isn't what we disagreed on. We disagreed on the solution. He said he wouldn't mind becoming a Buddhist. Buddhism believes that the individual had the ability to become a good person and be perfect, on his own accord. I didn't believe that. My life experiences tells me that I need Jesus, because if we can be good on our own accord, humans would've all been good already. So I shared a bit of my own stories and how I got to this point in my faith.

Concluding
I think, even though we've hit a lot of different topics and (hopefully), I presented a decent case, I've been reminded the limitation of apologetics here. I cannot expect someone to believe just because I could answer all his questions. Apologetics allowed me to present my case in a intellectual, logical way, to lend creditability to the hope of my faith, and not be stuck with a "uhhh I dunno"

I'll point to Mikee for a discussion about apologetics and Jorge for further thoughts on how to properly use apologetics. We're called give the reason for the hope that we have. We can plant things with our arguments and logical debates, but God is the one that makes the seeds grow.

Post-modernism

BBW just went though a section on post-modernism/relativism. Researching and thinking about this has got to be one of the harder topics we've covered in BBW. We don't often encounter groups like Mormons or JWs around. But post-modernistic ideas are everywhere. Chances are, I myself have some post-modernistic beliefs that I just absorb from my culture, and haven't really thought about...well. Until now, anyway.

Post-modernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Post-modernism has influenced many cultural fields, including literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture, visual arts, and music.

- Wikipedia

So in our context, post-modernism is the belief that there is no such thing as absolute truth (i.e. denial of Biblical truth). Rather, what is true for you may not be true for me. What works for you might not work for me. That truth is relative and that everyone's point of view are valid. I was brought up to believe that tolerance is good. In fact, I've found myself pretty upset when I encountered situations of blatant intolerance.

I've gotten into a few discussions regarding religion and belief systems before. It's been a lot of sharing of what one believes in...and usually left at that. The rallying cry (verse, rather) of the apologist would most likely be the one from 1 Peter:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect...

- 1 Peter 3.15

So we're called to present our opinions, but to do so in a gentle and caring way. I wouldn't enjoy it very much if someone just came up to me and told me how dumb I am for being an engineer, being in academia or having Christian beliefs. I would assume that the same goes for others. Be firm, but be loving.

My search in finding more about this topic and these thoughts has led me to two people, William Lane Craig (Professor of Talbot School of Theology) and Tim Keller (Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian), both of whom can say this much better than I can. I'll share their thoughts first, and write more later.

Tim Keller
About every other week, I confront popular pluralist notions that have become a large part of the way Americans think. For example, pluralists contend that no one religion can know the fullness of spiritual truth, therefore all religions are valid. But while it is good to acknowledge our limitations, this statement is itself a strong assertion about the nature of spiritual truth.

A common analogy is often cited to get the point across which I am sure you have heard - several blind men trying to describe an elephant. One feels the tail and reports that an elephant is thin like a snake. Another feels a leg and claims it is thick like a tree. Another touches its side and reports the elephant is a wall. This is supposed to represent how the various religions only understand part of God, while no one can truly see the whole picture. To claim full knowledge of God, pluralists contend, is arrogance. When I occasionally describe this parable, and I can almost see the people nodding their heads in agreement.

But then I remind the hearers that the only way this parable makes any sense, however, is if the person telling the story has seen the whole elephant. Therefore, the minute one says, 'All religions only see part of the truth,' you are claiming the very knowledge you say no one else has. And they are demonstrating the same spiritual arrogance they so often accuse Christians of.  In other words, to say all is relative, is itself a truth statement but dangerous because it uses smoke and mirrors to make itself sound more tolerant than the rest.

Most folks who hold this view think they are more enlightened than those who hold to absolutes when in fact they are really just as strong in their belief system as everyone else.  I do not think most of these folks are purposefully using trickery or bad motives.  This is because they seem to have even convinced themselves of the "truth" of their position, even though they claim "truth" does not exist or at least can't be known.  Ironic isn't it?  The position is intellectually inconsistent.

From: The Supremacy of Christ and the Gospel in a Postmodern World (Desiring God Conference 2006)
(I actually copied this from another short article, found here, but Keller mentions this story, and most of the contents of the article I cited, in his Conference lecture)

William Lane Craig
Now I can imagine some of you thinking, “But don’t we live in a post-modern culture in which these appeals to traditional apologetic arguments are no longer effective?  Since post-modernists reject the traditional canons of logic, rationality, and truth, rational arguments for the truth of Christianity no longer work.  Rather in today’s culture we should simply share our narrative and invite people to participate in it.”

In my opinion this sort of thinking could not be more mistaken.  The idea that we live in a post-modern culture is a myth.  In fact a post-modern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable.  Nobody is a post-modernist when it comes to reading the labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison!  You better believe that texts have objective meaning!  People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics.

...

And as for the idea that people in our culture are no longer interested in nor responsive to rational argumentation and evidence for Christianity, nothing could be farther from the truth.  If I might be permitted to speak from my own experience, for over twenty years I’ve been speaking evangelistically on university campuses in North America and Europe, sharing the Gospel in the context of presenting an intellectual defense of Christian truth claims.  I always close my talks with a long time of Q & A.  During all those years virtually no one has ever stood up and said something like, “Your argument is based on Western, chauvinistic standards of logic and rationality” or expressed some other post-modern sentiments.  This just never happens.  If you approach the questions on a rational level, people respond to them on a rational level.  If you present scientific or historical evidence for a Christian truth claim, unbelieving students may argue with you about the facts - which is exactly what you want -, but they don’t attack the objectivity of science or history themselves.  If you present a deductive argument for a Christian truth claim, unbelieving students may raise objections to your conclusion or premises - which is, again, precisely where the discussion should be -, but they don’t dispute your use of logic itself.

From: Christian Apologetics - Who needs it? (Reasonable Faith)