This is the Sun

I’ve got a question concerning the story of Nabi Isa from the Christain perspective. According to some historian, the story of Nabi Isa is nothing more than a plagiarized depiction of the Egyptian Sun God Horus and other numerous pre-Christian deities. The similarities are undeniable while others arguable. I’ve read a lot of feedback about this from a Christian angle, and as predicted, defended their beliefs with rigor. I would however like to know some feedback from Muslim’s point of view. Because it also has some serious implication I think from our own standpoint. Anyway the story is as follows:

Horus was born on December 25^th of the virgin Isis-Meri. His birth was accompanied by a star in the east, which in turn, three kings followed to locate and adorn the new-born savior. At the age of 12, he was a prodigal child teacher, and at the age of 30 he was baptized by a figure known as Anup and thus began his ministry. Horus had 12 disciples he traveled about with, performing miracles such as healing the sick and walking on water. Horus was known by many gestural names such as The Truth, The Light, God's Annointed Son, The Good Shepherd, The Lamb of God, and many others. After being betrayed by Typhon, Horus was crucified, buried for 3 days, and thus, resurrected.

These general characteristic seem to permeate throughout the world from other culture’s god. For example:

· Attis, of Phyrigia, born of the virgin Nana on December 25th, crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days, was resurrected;

· Krishna, of India, born of the virgin Devaki with a star in the east signaling his coming, performed miracles with his disciples, and upon his death was resurrected;

· Dionysus of Greece, born of a virgin on December 25th, was a traveling teacher who performed miracles such as turning water into wine, he was referred to as the "King of Kings," "God's Only Begotten Son," "The Alpha and Omega," and many others, and upon his death, he was resurrected;

· Mithra, of Persia, born of a virgin on December 25th, he had 12 disciples and performed miracles, and upon his death was buried for 3 days and thus resurrected, he was also referred to as "The Truth," "The Light," and many others. Interestingly, the sacred day of worship of Mithra was Sunday.

Then there is the latest of the similar messiah, Nabi Isa;

· He was born of the virgin Mary on December 25^th in Bethlehem, his birth was announced by a star in the east, which three kings or magi followed to locate and adorn the new savior. He was a child teacher at 12, at the age of 30 he was baptized by John the Baptist, and thus began his ministry. He also had 12 disciples which he traveled about with performing miracles such as healing the sick, walking on water, raising the dead, he was also known as the "King of Kings," the "Son of God," the "Light of the World," the "Alpha and Omega," the "Lamb of God," and many others. After being betrayed by his disciple Judas and sold for 30 pieces of silver, he was crucified, placed in a tomb and after 3 days was resurrected and ascended into Heaven.

They also continue to state that inscribed about 3500 years, on the walls of the Temple of Luxor in Egypt are images of the enunciation, the Immaculate Conception, the birth, and the adoration of Horus. The images begin with Thaw announcing to the virgin Isis that she will conceive Horus, then Nef the Holy Ghost impregnating the virgin, and then the virgin birth and the adoration. This is exactly the story of the miracle conception. In fact, the literary similarities between the Egyptian religion and the Christian religion are staggering.

Furthermore they argue that there isn’t any non-biblical historical evidence of any person, living with the name Jesus, the Son of Mary, who travelled about with 12 followers, healing people and the like. There are many historians at the time who presided around the Mediterranean whether during or soon after the assumed life of Jesus, and not one of them documented this figure.

Now these statements I presume also jeopardize our own historical facts. Thus,I would like to invite anyone who can shed some light or have an opinion into the matter.

The “Power” that binds us

As pointed out before, money is the root of all social ills; the fundamental driving force for greed, corruption, crime and self-preservation all in the name of profit. Money is not a resource nor does it represent one. We have been conditioned to accept it as such and therefore blinded for what it actually is; a tool of control, enslaving society with dept.

But who is in control of all this money? You, me, the government? Nay, for the true identity that enslaves us all are the 1% of the world population that has 40% of the world’s entire wealth. Keeping the status quo, self-preservation and increasing their profit is their only agenda. The people that represent the multinational corporations that serves only their self interest where the main motive like any other business is to make profit. As you can see, if profit is what drives them, then how can they truly act morally and ethically, for these two, more often than enough, will act as a hindrance to profit.

Case in point, a drug company in the US positively absolutely knew they had a medication that was infected with the AIDS virus, and subsequently took it off the US shelf. However, they decided to dump it in Europe, Asia and Latin America. Both the US government and the FDA allowed it to happen resulting in thousand of hemophiliacs dying from the AIDS virus, all because the company wanted to turn their mistake into profit.

“You get up on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America, there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbine, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.What do you think the Russians talk about in their counsels of state- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, min and max solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do. We no longer live in a world of Nations and Ideologies, Mr. Biel. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business Mr. Biel.” - Character Arthur Jensen from the movie Network

The world is run by a hand-full of big business, controlling and determining what we need and want, how to behave, how we live our lives. Consequently, any individual or groups that challenge their superiority are deemed to be “Terrorist”. By the way ‘Al-Qaida’ is actually a name of a computer database of the U.S.-supported Mujahedeen in the 1980’s. A database.

These corporations will do anything to exert dominance to societies even withholding new technology that may improve our energy needs because they haven’t thought of a way of making profit out of them. Alternative energy solutions advocated by them, such as hydrogen, biomass and even nuclear are not sufficient, dangerous and exist only to perpetuate the profit-structure that the industry has created.

In fact beyond the propaganda and self-serving solutions put forth by these companies we will find other source of clean abundant and renewable energy for generating power, if it weren’t suppressed. For example solar derived from the sun has such abundance that one hour of sunlight at high noon contains more energy than what the entire world consumes in a year. If we could harness just 0.01% of this we would never need to use oil, gas or anything else.

Wind power on the other hand has long been condemned as weak and location driven therefore impractical. However, the US department of energy admitted in 2007 that if wind harvested is just three of the America’s 50 states, could power the entire nation.

The mediums of tidal and wave power is relatively unknown. Turbines installed in the ocean could capture movements of tidal shifts that could generate power. In UK, 42 sites have been noted to be viable and 34% of the UK’s energy could come from this medium alone.

Wave energy is produce from the surface motions of the oceans which is estimated to have a global potential of up to 80,000 terawatts-hours a year. That could be translated into 50% of the entire planets energy consumptions.

It’s important to note that tidal, wave, solar and wind don’t need prerequisite energy to harness, unlike coal, oil, gas, biomass, and hydrogen. The combination of these 4 mediums could potentially power the world forever.

However there is one clean renewable energy source that trumps all of them: Geothermal Power.

Geothermal energy employ the use of what’s called “heat mining”, and together with a simple process using water, is able to generate huge amounts of clean energy. In 2006, MIT reported that there is currently about 13,000 zettajoule of energy available in the earth with possibly 2,000 zettajoule being easily tapable with improved technology. To put that into perspective, the entire consumption of all the countries in the world is only about 0.5 zettajoule per year. Only half a zettajoule. That means about 4,000 years of planetary power could be harnesses from this medium alone. And when we understand that the earth’s heat generation is constantly renewed, this energy is really limitless therefore could be used forever.

In fact, between advanced battery storage, and geothermal energy; there would be no reason to ever burn fossil fuels ever again. And we could do this now, if we were not held back by the paralyzing profit structure.

(Article abstracted and paraphrased from the Zeitgeist: Addendum documentary available on YouTube, Google video, bit-torrent and can be ordered from their website: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/)

Modern Money Mechanics or Modern Day Slavery

The Monetary System in its simplest terms is money for labour, and goods and services rendered. We revolve around this simple transaction everyday. Not knowing the inherent dept that we incur while performing it. I won’t bore you with the explanation of how money is created, but in general terms: Government need money so they issue bond for the amount needed to Central banks or the US Federal Reserve. The Central bank buys them and then prints money to be given to the Government. Once received, the Government would then deposit the money into their banks and thus becoming legal tender. Now this is an overly simplistic depiction of money creation for which in reality nothing physical is exchange, only digitally. However in our country’s case it differs slightly, it would be our financial institution who issues the money, but nonetheless the concept is the same.

But the danger with this system is that it has what’s called, inflation; $1.00 in the 1913 would cost $21.60 now, that’s a 96% devaluation since then. Of course any form 1 student studying economics would know this, but have anyone ever questioned it? Inflation is actually interest. Interest that’s owed back to the financial institution.

Due to inflation the Government will never repay the money it owes because in order to repay it, more money is needed therefore more dept, increasing with it the inflation. It’s a never ending circle of loans and dept repayments.

“If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.” - Marriner Eccies

The same thing happens to an individual. The money you have is virtually owed to someone, somewhere. You in turn have to continue working to pay for it. Meaning, even if you don’t take out a personal loan per se, you would still need to work to receive money. Once you have money you can then pay for the goods and services offered by both the private and public sector. If you indeed you take out a loan, you then have to be content with your meaningless job in order to repay it. Either way, working for money is inevitable.

Private British and American banking interests, stated: “…slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan… Is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages.”- Peter Joseph.

In other words, physical slavery requires people to be housed and fed while economic slavery requires people to feed and house themselves. This is a most ingenious plan to ever be conceived and the heart of it is an invisible war against the population. Debt is the weapon of choice use to conquer and enslave societies, with interest being its main ammunition.

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt” - John Adams, 1735-1826

Also inherent in this Monetary System is Corruption. When some company dumps toxic waste into the environment, we automatically consider it as corrupt behavior. But when let say Hua Ho moves in next door to a convenient store therefore forcing the store to close down due to lack of business, a gray area emerge, for what exactly is Hua Ho doing wrong? Even more subtle is the replacement of a person by some automation, we simply see this as progression or improvement rather than what’s motivating it – Profit; faster creation, faster sales, lower cost = higher profit. We don’t see the inherent corrupt inhumanity of such action for which the motives are the same – profit.

What exactly drives this Monetary-Profit based system? Some have argued the notion of efficiency and sustainability is what drives it. Is it? No product created in this system have ever been efficient or sustainable, otherwise there wouldn’t be a multi-million dollar service industry for automobiles. Or the electronic consumer products that will be obsolete within 6 months with an average life span of 2 years. Surely it’s not efficiency or sustainability. So is it abundance? Not according to the laws of supply and demand where abundance is a negative thing. For abundance will devalue the products like gold, diamonds, oil, gas, timber, exotic goods and animals, and others. So in actual fact, efficiency, sustainability and abundance are enemies of profit. Scarcity is what drives it.

In our country the system of money or monetary system is fundamentally as the same the world over. With this system we can never truly trust anyone as people are always looking to make more money to cover dept or/and make profit. In a world where 34,000 children die every single day from poverty and preventable diseases, and, where 50% of the world’s population lives on less than 2 dollars a day… One thing is clear. Something is very wrong. And, whether we are aware of it or not, the lifeblood of all of our established institutions, and thus society itself, is money. Corruption is also apparent and with 1% of the world’s population owns 40% of the wealth; they are the true rulers of us all.

Jacque Fresco said:
“The major difference between a resource based economy and a monetary system is that a resource based economy is really concerned with people and their well-being, where the monetary system has become so distorted that the concerns of the people are really secondary, if they’re there at all. The products that are turned out are for: How much money you can get. If there is a problem in society, and you can’t earn money from that solving that problem, than it won’t be done.

The resource based economy is really not close to anything that’s been tried. And with all our technology today we can create abundance. It could be used to improve everyone’s lifestyle. Abundance all over the world if we use our technology wisely and maintain the environment.”

More on this later…

(Article abstracted and paraphrased from the Zeitgeist: Addendum documentary available on YouTube, Google video, bit-torrent and can be ordered from their website: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/)

Note: I don’t want to sound like a 1st year grad regurgitating works of others without having my own thoughts thus sounding unoriginal. But I like this theory, it sheds some light in an otherwise darkening world where power, greed, corruption and profit drives every facet of human behavior. The Venus project proposal although far fetch and sounds a little bit too good to be true, should nevertheless be considered and studied further. Areas of entertainment, sports, excitement, and others haven’t been fully explained. The notion of incentives though available in their proposal, still lacks the fundamental mechanism that drives us on to live our lives. Maybe that’s because we are so accustomed to our way of living that the thought of not doing something not even remotely similar to what we are doing now, is somewhat inconceivable and scary. But I for one am open to a new change, cause change for the better, is better than our monotonous numb existence and apparently futile lives we live. Human well-being and human decency is forgone for the sake of profiteering and where civil liberty is truly lost.

The future is what we make it

This post does not concern only our country but the world in general. What I’m saying that this is not the final solution to solve our current dilemma but it sure looks like a better one. Maybe we could consider it before dismissing it as new age ludicrous theory or a new form of communism; think critically and analyze.

The monetary system we live in at the moment was a great idea some thirty or fifty years ago. But now it’s becoming unsustainable. Crime, greed, poverty, terrorism are all product of this system.

The problem with the current monetary system is we continuously have to look and make profit at the expense of human wellbeing, if it was even considered in the first place.

Technology is the key. It is the one thing that changed and improved our lives, not money or politicians. Technology is the one that can make someone see again, able to communicate over long distance, feed the world, house everyone not politicians; they are not trained to do so. Politicians can only pass laws and create policy. How to feed the world? How to get rid of poverty? How to house people? How to have sustainable clean energy? Are all technical problems and therefore need technical solutions not political.

If we pose those questions to a politician, he/she would say how much would it cost? The real question should be do we have the resources? And yes we do. But in monetary system we don’t because we need profit and resources are valued by its scarcity. Oil production is cut to drive the prices high, diamonds are burned to maintain its value, gold is less and less mined, all these in order to maintain the status-quo.

There so many renewable source of clean energy out there and we not using it. Solar, wind, waves, and perpetual motion are all viable source of clean energy. But there is also one energy source that trumps them all and that is Geothermal Energy. Scientist says that there is currently 20,000zl of energy available and with improved technology we can now tap about 2,000zl. To put that into prospective, the entire world’s energy consumption is only 0.5zl; we probably don’t need burn anymore fossil fuel for the rest of our lives. These clean energy sources also don’t need prerequisite energy source to extract them. Unlike crude oil, gas or cold; it’s already there to be tapped into.

We have the technology now to take advantage of these resources if it weren’t for corrupt governments and big industries lobbyist suppressing it. All they do is corrupt the system for profit; therefore a new Resource Based Economy is ideal for our today’s society where we can achieve equilibrium between technology, humans, and nature (Read: Venus Project).

We will then look back at our current system in the future and laugh at how primitive we really were.

(Points taken and paraphrase from Zeitgeist: Addendum documentary available on YouTube, Google video, bit-torrent and can be ordered from their website: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/)

Note: I’m not advocating it, I’m merely rising awareness of it viability. We need further research. Like Jacque Fresco said “It’s not perfect but its just better”.

*Bell ringing* The British are coming!!!

I started replying to a comment made by bantal on JB (http://jasonbiggskills.blogspot.com) about Poisonous Western Media Propaganda. As I was typing away, I realize it got longer than intended to, so I decided to post it here.

Yes it's true, JB is indeed trying to seek attention, however his intention is to bring forward some issues that is worth pointing out, though mind you, I don't agree on all of them, but nevertheless I commend him on having the guts to bring it forward and those who is able to discuss with him.

As for the post, well the Royals certainly have the money and it’s their prerogative to do so, and it's none of my business what they do just like it's none of mine to know what Angelina is doing.

The government, on the other hand, is a different matter. Not to stir things up but it's definitely our business what they are doing and how the conduct themselves. Because the policies they make affects us all. Though I do believe they do it with good intention but accountability should also be adhered to. There are government officers in the past both high ranking and low level that have been reprimand and even taken to court for their misbehavior, so kudos to HM for that.

As for media censorship, everywhere around the world has some sort of media censorship in one way or another. Propaganda is used to manipulate people to believe it something that is not entirely true. Just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it alright though. The way I see it, Brunei is trying to keep its appearance of stability in order to attract more investors, face it, even though with all our complaints, and it is actually just complaints about this and that, Brunei is a stable country environmentally, financially and politically. It’s hidden secret if you will. Hopefully, we do get a lot more investors so the economy can pick up, jobs are created and we can preserve our way of living. However I must stress, some mindset and demeanor have to be change drastically and continuing living the way we live is definitely not sustainable nor is it productive. I just contradict myself there but you know what I mean.

“More investors also mean more foreigners bringing with them their culture” So what, you’re afraid? What culture haven’t we seen or experience; Japanese? Koreans? American? Nigerian? the British? They here already dumbass. Here’s a chance to show them our beautiful culture and bring it to their homeland.

Take a public transport day

I think improving the public transport has more benefits then just accommodating the tourism industry. Not only will tourists be able to find their way around our beloved country easily but also we the public can use it therefore easing the traffic congestions. I for one would love to take the bus to work and back. In addition to that by having proper public transportation with proper routes, timetables and bus stands, the kids can be thought to use them as well thus freeing up the parents from fetching them and hopefully improving their productivity. Then the government can actually get more work done within their “seriously short working hours” (No one seem to there and phones that seem to ring forever). I’m not saying that this is the answer to it but I think it will surely help. And I know there will be problems that’ll arise from that as well, but we should tackle that as they come and should not be a deterrent.

Everyone who are of driving age seem to have a car, not all I know that, Bruneians are not that rich but there again is another problem. They know they can’t afford it but still buys them anyway on hire purchase. Paying huge sum of money every month which in turn, if they realize it or not, causing them stress, coupled that with stress from work and home could potential ruin their personal and professional life.

The degrading image of taking public transport along with foreign workers and who we deem as poor should be wiped out. Instead we should cultivate a much healthier image as those who do take public transport are contributing to save the environment. (I’m doing my part, are you?). I’ll tell you what, I’m not just going to talk the talk but also walk the walk. I’m going to take the bus to… somewhere (haven’t decided yet) when I get back to Brunei. Let’s also initiate a “Take the bus to work or school day”. Who’s with me? Anyone know how we can go about introducing this day to the public? Who to go and see? Which government agency? I predict there will be a lot of resistance. So maybe we should start with car pooling day. Where it’s illegal to drive around with less than 4 occupants? 2 people for 2 seated cars.

Maybe we should also introduce a car pool lane as sort of an incentive to those who do car pool, can use and therefore reach their destination faster.

I’m pretty sure some of this has been suggested before by someone because face it I know I’m not the brightest of the bunch to be the only one who came up with these ideas sitting in my dark and cold room, not the usual place where epiphany occur. Then the question is why was it not introduced? If indeed suggested, why was it unsupported and resisted?

I guess and especially true to guys, a car is a symbol of status, or more realistically, compensating for “something else”. They modify it, “beautified” it, “beef it up” and “strengthen” it. I think Freud might an input in that ;-)

“My car is bigger, better, faster than yours” Yes but do you know how to “use it”? Ha-ha... Male shoveniest good for nothing son of a female dog…
“Angry are we?” Nope just stating the obvious.

I'll fly thank you very much

The previous post was supposed to be light hearted break from the discussion. It was meant to be amusing to the few that knows who we are. Sort of an inside joke. Though we should have taken a break after a more relevant post.

I personally am going through a dry spell on topics to discuss. I asked a few people for advice and have been reading news online, but the inspiration it just not there.
The thing is Brunei has many issues to talk about. But not to paint a grim view of our nation, Brunei does have a lot of other qualities that makes it a great nation. The country is full of talented, educated, beautiful, kind hearted people. There are people who will go out of their way to help others and some who don’t give a damn. Coming back to Brunei during the semester breaks, if I spot a tourist that seems to be lost or having a difficult time finding their way around, I would offer them a ride and take them to where they intended to go. If they don’t know where to go I would suggest to them where depending on their interest (I know it’s the messiah complex in me, the need to help people).

After doing this for quite a few times now, I come to realize that Brunei is not really geared up for tourism. The transport infrastructure is just not there or not up to par to western nations. I have to admit I have never taken a taxi or a bus ride in Brunei (does the school bus count?)

I’ve seen a few bus stand here and there, but they are few a far between. Taxi stands are even fewer. I know we are trying to make the tourism industry one of the driving forces of the economy but is it sustainable? I mean is it sustainable in the context of Brunei? With close proximity to places like Singapore, KL, KK, Thailand, Jakarta, Bali and others which are tourist magnets, how are we suppose to compete with them in order to boost our economy? With their years of service industries experience, Brunei still has a lot to catch up. The Bruneian currently working in this industry is still having the same mentality as government servant, that the employers owe them certain privileges and benefits. Then there are those who look down at people who work in the field. It’s an honest day work even though the pay might not be the same to what the government is offering, the work itself should be considered as important.

I think the country is improving at quite a good rate in relation to the population. Maybe we just lack the expertise in ratio to our development needs. But as more people are getting educated and the population increases, we should see further development especially when we reach a 1 million people. Hopefully by then, people would still have good buying power so the economy will pick up and gets bigger.

I’ll leave you with this video I stumble upon on youtube. It’s actually quite good; music, perform and produce by Bruneians.



“1 Million People? That’s a lot of cars on the road” Yea I know, it’s a great excuse to finally use my Green Lantern ring to fly to the office.