Monday, May 16, 2011

应对抑郁症提升生活素质

我读了“每天与父母通电话,不要让独居老人因寂寞患抑郁症”的一则新闻报道后,心理涌起对时下大幅增加的抑郁症病患情况感到唏嘘。抑郁症并没分年龄袭击我们,连幼童都不例外。

其实抑郁症并不会突然出现的,它的演变过程,最普遍的是压力烦恼失眠抑郁症,严重的后果是自杀或伤人或杀人。因此预防胜于治疗,我们不妨多留意身边人的一举一动,从初步迹象出现即采取恰当步骤。

若发现那人的举动跟平常的是相反的话,请别轻视此现象。此时有不少人以为他在跟你开玩笑,然而该状况却是潜意识地让他向我们发出求救的讯号。假使一次又一次地错过了正视它,结果他就会患上抑郁症。

我们甚至不晓得身边的一些经历,其实乃是抑郁症的表现。譬如有些雇主,起初对于职员是蛮客气的。不过后来经常在开会时总大发雷霆破口大骂职员,没有一句称赞的话。雇主的动作是抑郁症的征兆,基于他的地位,职员即使是察觉到状况,也不敢开口,这样就导致他每况愈下!

环境的变迁是抑郁症直接的祸首,以前抑郁症并不普遍,因为儿孙满堂,同时大家对生活的素质要求不高,有满足感。现在人们涌到城市干活,开销庞大,因此不敢多生孩子,且生活变得追求物质享受。在一种经常被困于四面墙壁里生活的情形下,不但大人孤独,连孩子也被剥削自由。

城市生活造成人心永远填不满,因此我们开始烦恼怎样找更多钱。烦恼导致脑部过分受到刺激,就这样失眠。我们的健康受损,往往都是失眠造成的。失眠会导致我们的五脏六腑缺乏充分休息,譬如肝是负责造血糖的,若它没有休息,身体就缺乏血糖。肺是负责分配气血的,若它没有休息,气血不足,心脏和头脑皆缺氧。头脑缺氧导致思想模糊,这是抑郁症的开始。抑郁症患者,持久下去到一个地步,他们并不晓得他们所做的事情。

以我这样一个中年人,我也很向往以前的小镇平静的生活,街坊都是相熟友善的,那时真的是无忧无虑的。但今天住在小市镇甚至是乡下,并不保证也像往常一样无忧无虑的,因为年轻人都涌到城市去了,留下来的都是孤独的老人家。若孩子不经常联络父母的话,住在乡下也一样会患上抑郁症的。

我们其实可以应对抑郁症的,以前中国人常以琴棋书画来作消遣的,这样的优良文化生活令人心舒服,生活悠闲。反观今天人都是沉迷电脑及上网,过夜生活,又暴饮暴食的,怎能不百病缠身?所以,改变我们的生活习惯是应对的答案之一,人生在世短暂,那我们应该提升我们的生活素质,不要拼搏得失去健康家庭,而是缔造健康美满家庭,过悠闲的生活。其二,参与一些健康的团体活动。以我本人的宗教为例,我们通过基督教会给予会友的教育,有不少例子成功减少抑郁症呢!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

严厉惩罚犯错者

曾毓林编辑那篇“没事,不等于不放在心上”,让我想到一些关于公务员相关课题,即是,“政府部门怎样惩罚犯错者?”

欢迎总理温家宝的匾牌那无厘头中文翻译,在一个拥有中文教育的马来西亚发生,的确并不是小事一桩,而是嘉宾的客套话。我的疑问就是已经过了这么多天,为何没听到犯错者受到对付?政府部门不要只用内部解决,应该高调严厉惩罚。

这类丢国家面子的事件在不少国家肯定把犯错者革职,而一些国家里,涉事者还自动引咎辞职呢!仪式当天许子根部长不是气愤地说必定追究到底的吗?为何要这么多天调查至今没下文?我认为我国必须采取严厉行动以挽回一些好评,也好让嘉宾知道我们很严谨看待此无必要的错误,

一些过去所发生的公务员犯错,政府惩罚不严厉,甚至没有采取对付行动,这或许是纵容公务员一而再,再而三地逾越雷池的原因。过去一些发表“回中国论;回印度论”的校长和老师,有者被调校,但有者却原封不动。其实调校乃治标不治本的,最好是革职或降职。若不严厉杀鸡儆猴的话,难保不会再没有类似伤害别族群的言论!

大马的一个奇怪现象就是政府部门的小拿破仑事件很“猖獗”。上面有政策,下面却不合作!问题是每当部长宣布了政策之后,有没有一纸通令地上情下达?甚至领袖讲的话,在官方网站却是另一个讯息。普罗百姓已经听得厌烦公务员声称“没有收到上头指示”的那类言论。

没有严厉惩罚不合作的公务员是导致小拿破仑滋长的原因。小拿破仑猖獗也是贪污猖獗的源头之一。

--------------------------------

“没事”,不等於不放在心上

儘管大马华人都在为布城举行的欢迎中国总理的官方仪式,佈景版出现中文翻译出错一事议论纷纷,但有关方面认为这跟大马原本要向温家宝表达热忱的心意是两回事,所以不需要过於紧张。

但身为在华文报工作的一分子,汗顏之余,我始终觉得:一些错误是小事还是大事,胥视当事人重不重视而已。

官方仪式出现如此谬误翻译,使我想起一个故事:一主人大排筵席款待客人,声称对方是

他最重视的贵宾;然而第一道端上的佳餚即发现了有一头苍蝇,但主人没有感到特別尷尬,只是拍拍贵宾的肩膀说“这是小小苍蝇而已,无损我对你的诚意。”

或许来宾会基於礼貌,“深明大义”的回应说:“无所谓,小事一桩,不是甚么大问题,不影响我俩的交情。”但会对主人从此留下甚么印象,这就难说。毕竟,客套话不一定是等於实在话。

中国人有句成语叫“见微知著”。一个豪华酒店招待宾客纵使有五星级的排场,但从食物上的一只小苍蝇,是可以看得出酒店管理层的態度,是认真?还是不够认真?

【热点新闻:中国总理温家宝访马】

星洲日报/沟通平台‧《星洲日报》报副总编辑(副刊):曾毓林‧2011.04.27

来源: http://opinions.sinchew-i.com/taxonomy/term/13

Sunday, May 1, 2011

If Allah Is A God in Islam, Can Christians Call Their God Allah?

30 April, 2011
By NH Chan

If Allah is the Islamic God then, since Christians are not Muslims, could or should Christians call their God Allah?

Source - http://bit.ly/k1RvDM

Source - http://bit.ly/k1RvDM

The nomenclature of God

IF YOU LOOK UP THE WORD "ALLAH" IN ANY ENGLISH DICTIONARY , you will find this definition:

Allah noun the name of God among Muslims; or Allah n. the principle Muslim name for God.

In fact all English dictionaries are definite about the meaning of the word Allah; it is the name of God in Islam. Surprisingly the dictionary does not say that it is an Arabic word. Actually it is not strange at all. As I have already explained before, this Arabic word has become an English word since the sixteenth century when it was spelt using the English alphabet to represent the speech sounds of the Arabic word. It is only an Arabic word if it is written in the original Arabic text as distinct from the phonetic spelling in English.

If Allah is the Islamic God then, since Christians are not Muslims, could or should Christians call their God Allah?

The answer will depend on whether, as a fact, Allah in Arabic was first coined by the founder of Islam or that this Arabic word Allah had predated Islam and had been in existence as a name for "The God" ? "The" meaning "the only one of its kind", as in "the only God" - long before Prophet Mohammed’s Call, the legendary revelation of Allah in 611 AD. As a matter of fact, even before there was Jesus Christ, "Allah" meaning "the only God" was already a word in Arabic a Semitic language spoken by the ancient Arabs who belonged to the ethnic group of peoples known as the Semites.

Historically, therefore, the Arabic word Allah was not coined by Islam’s founder at all. According to the Bible, God made Abraham, his two sons Ishmael and Isaac and their descendants His people. Since then monotheism - a religious belief that there is only one God - was founded. The descendants of Abraham from the line of Ishmael (the Arabs) and Isaac (the Jews) worshipped the only God named Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew. In Arabic, Allah was derived from Al - Ilah meaning Al (The) + Ilah (God). In Hebrew God was Eloah with a capital E.

Muslims worship the same God that Abraham, his two sons and their descendants had first worshipped more than 2000 years before Islam was founded and more than 1500 years before Jesus Christ was born.

Before Abraham there was god and there were gods without a capital G. For example: "elohim" means "gods" in Hebrew and "ilah" means "god" in Arabic. Since Abraham, after God made him and his two sons and their descendants His people, God is called Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew and they mean "The only God".

So that the Arabs and the Jews, and after the founding of Christianity and Islam, Christians and Muslims throughout the world worship the same God that Abraham, his two sons and their descendants first worshipped in biblical times thousands of years before there were Christians and Muslims.

Allah was the Arabic name for the only God long before Islam was founded. Abraham worshipped the only God whose name even then was Allah in Arabic and Eloah in Hebrew. Before Abraham there were also those who worshipped the only God. In biblical times English was not then spoken yet, so the Deity was not called God in English. But Arabic was already a spoken language in ancient times and Allah in Arabic was worshipped by those who believed in the only God even then.

But even in ancient times there were those who worshipped other god or gods and the true God was displeased with them (see the Quran) and they were punished. The Quran acknowledged and confirmed the biblical story of Noah (Nur), Surah 71, Abraham (Ibrahim), Surah 14 where Moses was also referred to. The Quran has also confirmed that even in the days of Noah, Abraham and Moses, Allah meaning the only God had been worshipped thousands of years before Islam was founded. That being the case, it has been established beyond peradventure that there were believers who had been worshipping Allah the only God so many thousands of years before Islam was founded in 611 AD.

Therefore, it is dishonest for those narrow-minded politicians and clerics to claim that only Muslims can use the word Allah when before Islam was founded others had been worshipping Allah, meaning the only God, for thousands of years by the Arabs and the Jews. In biblical times Allah was not worshipped by Muslims because Islam had not been founded yet.

That being so, I have often wondered why some people in our government today are so obsessed with the view that only Muslims can use the word Allah. Why should human beings prevent others from worshipping God according to their faiths by decreeing that those who worship the God of Abraham, as Christians do, are not allowed to call their God Allah? God never said His name Allah is for Malay Muslims only! God is never a racist. Only the misinformed are the racists. However, Muslims elsewhere do not mind Christians calling their God by the name Allah because God can be addressed in any language. For example, why should anyone be upset if a Chinese Christian addressed the only God as their God or Allah without using any Chinese word? For that matter, should a sensible Arab Muslim or Christian be upset when an Indian Christian addressed his only God in English or in Arabic, by calling Him God or Allah instead of using Hindi or Tamil?

The etymology of the Arabic and Hebrew languages for God

The Semites or Shemites are an ethnic group of peoples who speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians. Of these peoples who came from the same national or cultural background only the Arabs and the Jews still exist today.

Of the Semitic or Shemitic languages that include Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Amharic, and such ancient languages as Arkadian and Phoenician, only Arabic and Hebrew are still spoken.

In the Semitic languages, God is ‘Allah’ in Arabic, ‘Eloah’ in Hebrew and ‘Elah’ in Aramaic - these words, signifying God, are being pronounced according to their phonetic spelling in English as most, if not all, of us do not speak or write any of the aforesaid Semitic languages. Why do the mentioned languages sound so much alike? They sound similar because the Arabs and the Jews belong to the same ethnic group of peoples called Semites who shared and speak the same genus of Semitic languages. By the same token the Chinese people even though they speak different dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hakka, etc their language is written in Chinese characters which an educated Chinese can read irrespective of his spoken dialect. Similarly a scholar of any of the ancient Semitic language could decipher and read another language of the same Semitic genus.

To find out when Allah became the name of God to his people, we have to go back in time to ancient biblical history. We start with Shem who was the eldest of Noah’s three sons: see Genesis 10:21 in the Old Testament. The descendants of Shem were the Shemites or Semites, hence the name of this ethnic group of peoples. The ancient Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians, including the Jews and Arabs were regarded as descendants of Shem: see The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology.

The phases of God: from making Abraham and his descendants His people to being worshipped throughout the world from the teachings of Jesus Christ and Prophet Mohammed

According to the Old Testament of the Bible, Abraham was the first of the patriarchs and the founder of the Hebrew people (Genesis 11 - 25). Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar who was Sarah’s maidservant, was the ancestor of 12 Arabian tribes (Genesis 21: 8 - 21; 25: 12 - 18). Isaac was the younger son of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 17: 21 - 27).

In How to Judge the Judges I wrote, pages xxix, xxx:

Abraham was the founder of the Hebrew people. According to the Old Testament, Abram (later Abraham) at God’s call abandoned civilization, his father’s household and his people to wander in the desert as a nomad. His wife Sarai (later Sarah) had borne him no children. So Sarai took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. Hagar soon conceived with Abram’s child. But Sarai mistreated Hagar and heavy with child she ran away. According to the Old Testament, the angel of God found Hagar and told her to return to Abram and added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count." God also told Hagar that she shall name her son Ishmael for God has heard of her misery at the hands of Sarai. Ishmael means God hears. So Hagar bore Abram a son and he gave him the name of Ishmael. According to the Old Testament, Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. When Abram was 99 years old, God said to Abram that no longer will he be called Abram (it means exalted father); your name will be Abraham (it means father of many) for you will be the father of many nations - he will be fruitful and kings will come from him. In return, Abraham and his descendants will worship the God of Abraham who will be the God of his descendants for generations to come and the Covenant (agreement) they are to keep were; Every male among him shall be circumcised. For the generations to come every male who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in the household or bought with money from a foreigner - those who are not their offspring. Those who are not circumcised will be cut off from his people. As for Sarai, her name will be Sarah and she will be blessed and she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her. A son will be born of her. His name will be called Isaac. Abraham said to God, "If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!"

As for Ishmael, God said he had heard Abraham: "I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation."

And so on that very day, so the story goes in the Old Testament, Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household, and circumcised them. Abraham was 99 years old when he was circumcised, and his son Ishmael was 13. And every male in Abraham’s household, including those born in his household or bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him. Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born to him by Sarah, and he was circumcised.

And at page xxxi:

So now we know that the Arabs and the Jews were descended from Ishmael and Isaac whose father was Abraham (Ibrahim); and the God of them is the same God. And God has marked them as His people by circumcision.

Those events took place some two millennia before Jesus Christ was born, and before Prophet Mohammed founded Islam some 600 years after the birth of Jesus Christ.

After Abraham, with the advent of Christianity and Islam the worship of the only God extended to worshipping Him throughout the world. Monotheism, the religion of worshipping only One God, has become a world religion.

I ask, because I am unable to understand, why our government is trying so hard to separate the inseparable, that is, the people who believe in worshipping the same God to demean another of the same faith by decreeing that Christians are not allowed to call their God Allah and desecrating their Bible just because Christians call Allah their God. But the Quran had accepted Jesus Christ as being sent by God (Allah) to deliver the teachings of Allah (God).

NH Chan, a much respected former Court of Appeal Judge, is a gavel of justice that has no hesitation in pounding on Federal Court judges with wooden desks for heads. Retired from the Judiciary to become the People’s Judge. Wrote the explosive "Judging The Judges", now in its 2nd edition as "How To Judge The Judges". Once famously hinted at a possible "case match" between lawyer and judge by remarking that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (see Ayer Molek Rubber Company Berhad & Ors v Insas Berhad & Anor [1995] 3 CLJ 359). We need more people like NH Chan. That is why you should buy PASOC and his book.

Source: http://www.loyarburok.com/human-rights/pray-for-me/if-allah-is-a-god-in-islam-can-christians-call-their-god-allah/