On 基督教人文學會 Societies of Humanities and Christianities

I became a member of the society last week and I have decided to terminate my membership today. My first impression to the society is: it is a public forum to discuss Christianity and many of the elite members are well educated. After a brief discussion with one of the founders of the club, Mr. Cheung today (I suppose he has not gotten his PhD yet.) I realized I have been too naïve in assuming the society is trying to provide a place for rational discussion. Surely, Mr. Cheung does not represent the society; but base on the stats I believe it is not overwhelming to say he is THE most important members there.

In these two weeks, I have read most of the new posts there, it is not a secret that Mr. Cheung does not like 明光社, I suppose he hates 明光社 in a sense that you cannot question whether his arguments against 明光社. Yesterday, I have replied to one of their post on 明光社 about traffic allowances, since I knew very little about the details, I just question their metaphysical assumptions. I understood that my question might sound over-simplified; but, I just cannot help but wonder, is it that hard to make a response to a simple question? Then, I was not sure it was co-incidence or what, Mr. Cheung replied my question at another thread, (The thread was there for a few days) which I was asking how a Christian could conceive God in a physical world. He suggested that I have not provided enough grounds for the discussions, using terms that are not reader friendly and suffering from many grammatical mistakes. I agreed with all three of his criticism, for following my original assumption to the society, I go there to learn, share and rationally discuss with other Christians who might have engaged with the discussions. Then make a response claiming we could focus on discussing the objective of my post, on how Christians can conceive God in a Physical world. Then Mr. Cheung replied, basically ignoring what I have asked and suggested that I was not academic enough for the discussion. At the same time, he responded to the thread on 明光社, it was not surprising that once again he just ignored my question and focus on my use of language.

I was deeply disappointed, not because he has found out my mistakes, I know that I have my weaknesses and when I was asking the questions, I was trying to learn more from them, from someone who seems to be having the tolerance to tolerate less elite minds. However, I was wrong, since I am not a physicist who understands how the Law of Large number influences co-incidences, I have to suppose Mr. Cheung is giving me a hard time because I might have expressed a view different from him. If this is true, then I can just say I am sorry for him. I do not see how he is very different from 明光社 that he loathes so much. (Points might need further elaborations) Furthermore, I am sorry for his lake of inspirations as a scholar. It is very common for a scholar, especially being educated by the Anglo-American Philosophy to be both analytical and critical; but I believe, base on the Professors I have encountered at CUHK, a good scholar is someone who criticize you with inspirations. It is not hard to pick a few mistakes from Mr. Cheung’s work by using his logic, for instance in 誰才是福音派？論愛面子的福音派領袖和學者如何輸打贏要 like I have used members there in referring members at the societies, he simply used 福音派 without clarifying what he was trying to point to, was he pointing to 聖公會 only? Or is he discussing Baptist Church also? Put things otherwise, if I do not know the background of his discussions, I do not know what 福音派 refers to, as a result it is impossible for me to comment how I should evaluate his conclusion. However, unlike his criticisms to me, I can get what he was trying to express through his context and I believe this is what matters in an academic discussion.

Lastly, if you are still interested in discussing there, these are my suggestions. Firstly, the society is staying at an academic high ground, unless they fulfill their requirement, you should better shut your mouth. Secondly, Mr. Cheung encourages academic discussion but he dislikes one using difficult academic jargon, so unless you can summarize string theory by folk terms you better not talk about string theory. (It is contingent paradoxical to say one has to discuss something difficult without using academic jargons in a short forum article.) Thirdly, if you do not share the mindset like him, prepare to be punched in the face. Last, to be fair, all other members there are very nice.