euu typedd*:
blog
(Saturday, March 21, 2015-)
+12:03 AM]*
# catharsis, causation and correlation-
8 years have passed since my last post.
8 loooooooooong years. much has transpired, transitioned and transposed.
so why am i back? well, i guess for catharsis mainly. i think i always liked writing. but being the messy person that i am, i write all over the place. post-it pads, ipods, notebooks, journals, blogs, what have you.
anyway, having attended a lecture by Dr Christopher Yuan today on Homosexuality: nature or nurture.
this debate has been going on for ages and while many in the west have used nature as an arguement, the church in Singapore has gone with nurture as one of the primary causes.
and so begins the lecture on etiology. the study of causes.
having done statistics in poly was surely a help in understanding the difference in causations and correlations.
simply put, a study done showed that when there was an increase in the sales of ice-cream, there was also an increase in murder rates. so are ice-cream the cause of murder rates? or do murderers simply feel like eating ice cream after their crime?
if you look at this in an cause-and-effect way, logic would present either scenarios. though highly unlikely that ice cream causes hallucinogenic effects nor qualm the satiation of a murder.
However, once you factor in correlations, everything changes.
both these rates went up are simply the effects of something else entirely. you can make the only logical inference from here yourself.
that being said, Dr Christopher Yuan presented something that has been bugging me for a really long time: that it really is both nature and nurture. there is no one determining factor causing this, but a myriad of factors that correlate and cause.
being in the ministry for quite some time, i did have thoughts on this. perhaps the church in singapore got it wrong or are simply misinformed.
if the problem was that of nature, one would have no hope for change. it was predetermined.
if the problem was that of nurture, one would have changed far more easily because it would be a matter of personal determination.
however, if the problem is both nature and nurture, it is a predisposition. one would be more inclined to act out in certain ways that are influenced by both genetics and environment. one could affect change through willpower and determination and yet one would also fall because of the disposition.
does this not remind you of Paul's apparent lament in Romans 7? i do the things i do not want to do, and vice versa.
what we have here is simply this: sin.
this whole thing can be transplanted on other acts like stealing, lying, acts of arson, addiction, etc. and it still all adds up.
we are sinful in nature. we are nurtured by sinful people in a fallen and sinful world.
it is a sin problem.
if we really acknowledged all that, then the only logical conclusion is that the solution does not exist. not in this fallen world. it can only be found in a world without sin.
the story ends like this;
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