Testing God, an experiment

NOTE: before you click that X button on the top right corner of your browser, this isn’t an evangelizing/preaching/ post, read on (Seng Yip, and all you other people who don’t like reading ‘Christian’ posts :P)

As a Christian, one of the things that we’re not supposed to do is test God. We’re not supposed to go around inviting trouble, risking our lives, and doing things just to see if there will be any divine intervention or some sort of sign to God’s presence.

For the past few weeks I’ve been doing just that. Not to the extent of running across highways and expecting not to get hit by a car (that’s for Win Yew to do), but I’ve been varying the amount of money that I’ve been putting in the offering bag.

Now you’re gonna say “what?!”. Well, it’s been awhile, but there was one point where the pastors would just talk for months about giving money to church. They say that the more you give, the more blessings you will receive. I’m too lazy to search my bible for the quote about it..something about if you give something, you will get it back tenfold. So the pastors were all saying that giving money to church will improve your life.

After the countless sermons about giving, I got curious and wondered how much difference I would make if I gave different amounts of cash each week.

At the end of each week, I made some notes of how the week went, and after 5 weeks, I have come to a conclusion, but I’ll come to that later (conclusions usually come at the end)

Week 1 – I gave RM10.
I think my week was fine. I didn’t jot down anything on my phone about my week, so I guess it must’ve been uneventful.

Week 2 – I gave RM5.
My week went just as well as the previous week. Nothing bad/good happened.

Week 3 – I gave nothing.
Again, nothing good/bad happened.

Week 4 – It was an Easter Sunday, and I didn’t attend church at all- I was too tired to get up for church :p
Alas! Something happened that following week!

I got fleeced of RM20.
It was a morning (Wednesday if I’m not mistaken) when I arrived at the office building just before the cut off time (after 9.30 you have to pay 50sen for every minute you are late- I was late 10 minutes the previous day and had already paid RM5). When I got out of my car and started walking towards the office, a man came running out of a nearby shop and called at me, getting my attention. So I turned around and stopped, and he came running up to me, panting.

He explained his situation. “Hi, my car broke down, and I need some help. Just now I asked the mechanic about it, and he said the car battery died and I need to replace it. The battery costs RM140 and unfortunately I only have RM120. Could you borrow me RM20? I’m in a rush right now, you see– I am a French lecturer at Taylor’s School of Tousism and Hotel Management and I’m having an exam at 10am which I need to be there for.”

He went on a bit more, telling me more about himself, and even speaking some French, showing me his ID, some documents to me to prove himself. He even mentioned to me, “this is not a scam!” and so on. He seemed pretty trustworthy and all, so I thought, “Why not? There’s no harm in helping someone”.

He assured me that he would return the money to me at 4pm later that day, plus the fact that I was going to be late for work, I kinda agreed just to get him off my back. So we traded contact details, I gave him RM20, he called me “Godsent!” and went on his way off, while I went to work.

Needless to say, 4pm came, and he never called me back. I called him, sent him messages, left voice mail, and he never replied or answered. I called him later at night using a different number, and he still didn’t answer. I figured, he didn’t even give me a real number to call. So there went 20 bucks. He probably doesn’t even lecture at Taylor’s.. Hell, his name probably isn’t even Kamarul (yes that’s what he said his name was). Oh yeah, his phone number – 0169888203, feel free to abuse it.

In retrospect, the incident could have been avoided. I could have went into my office, ignoring him. I didn’t bother to check out a lot of things- I didn’t even see his car. I didn’t check whether his hand phone number was real- he said his phone was charging in the car. Hell, I was pretty fucking naive. Well, I guess it was a lesson for me.

But now, other strangers suffer splash damage. Imagine if a stranger genuinely needed help, but I didn’t help him/her. And someone died because of me not helping. I don’t think I could live with it. Knowing that you indirectly killed somebody. But then, how will you know if someone is lying or not? Exactly.

That left me feeling pretty shitty till the end of the week.

Week 5 – I skipped church to go to a Magic: the gathering tournament.
I topped 8 at the event (would’ve made a higher placing if not of some stupid mistake) which was pretty cool- I paid RM20 to enter, and won a RM70 prize (netting me RM50).

The past week has been so-so, nothing really good/bad happening. Today I went to another tournament and won 2 packs (+RM20), which kinda covers up the money I lost to the conman last week.

To conclude, I don’t think that the money I gave has anything to do with how my week went. Being scammed on the week after I skipped Easter and winning my money back later was probably a coincidence. Or maybe there aren’t enough results to make a clear conclusion (anyone else wish to try this experiment?). But from what I’ve gathered so far, giving money doesn’t really make a difference. No, I’m not advocating against giving to church, its probably a good thing to give your money- the church needs money to keep running, but giving RM10000 and hoping for a fantastic week (winning the lottery, waking up and realizing you’re in a bed with 3 hot girls in a hotel by a beach in Hawaii) isn’t gonna happen. Hell, I think you’d be happier spending the RM10000 instead of giving it away. And if you can afford to give RM10000 away, you’re probably happy anyway..because money buys happiness–

“Money doesn’t buy happiness..that phrase should end with ‘just kidding!’..I once saw a homeless man skipping and a bottle flew right at him and hit him in the head!” – Daniel Tosh

Oh, and head over to the Battle Royale Dumbass page and vote for me to win! (BRD sponsored by Chungs Autoparts and Lunatic Factor)