Religion and Morals

Beliefs change, Values change, Morals change but in many cases, the Holy Book remains the same.

It is also interesting that something like the bible, where it should be consistent throughout the world, you can find that the interpretation differs as you visit different churches.

With the invention of Mega Churches, Prosperity Gospel, and many other different variants, I realize that many things evolve, and in many religions, there is such evolution which turns out bad.

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“I like your Christ,” said Mahatma Gahndi, “but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” 

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I could say that the values of our culture is changing and are sometimes different from the values of our faith. This is not new as in bibical times, owning a slave is totally fine. Like politics, religion does have a certain view of things, and picking your religion means most of "your team" feel in a certain way.

When Paul addresses important issues related to sexuality in his letters to the Corinthians, he is speaking to the Church and seems unconcerned with society as a whole:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral … In that case you would have to leave this world … what business is it of mine to judge those outside the Church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. ‘Expel the wicked person from among you’” (1 Corinthians 5:9. 12-13).

I see a lot of calls when I'm in Singapore from religious groups judging performers like Madonna, calling for bans, and intolerant towards gays. Even Obama's speech on Gays was censored by Singapore Media.

In the US, I've seen religious groups protest abortions and are "pro-life" and after meeting several of these people, and sharing some of my disaster relief stories and asking them to support survivors of disasters, I realize that it is much harder to get donations from Religious Fundamentalists than Atheists. Many of them do feel that after going to church or tithe to their church, they do not need to do any other "good". And the survivors in a disaster, which is "God's will" are given a challenge which they will overcome if they have faith.

In Malaysia, I've seen groups taking offence to buildings with a "Cross Shape" on the roofs, asking the developers to repaint them. I have never thought of Muslims as a religion that were easily offended by mere architecture.

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Religion is never a bad thing, and sometimes, people following a bad religious leader will do nasty things which are totally uncalled for.

Non-religious people can also do good things, and not all good deeds come from religious roots. Even by making these comments, many religious people will be offended.

I believe religion is a good thing, and religious people should be more tolerant on issues which seems acceptable by society, listen to the other views and be open to new ideas. If not, you may fall to the slippery slope of extremism.

-- Robin Low

Who does urban renewals benefit?

It is a known fact that the gentrification push out the poor community. Most of the poor people rent their homes or live in public housing. They work locally in low wage jobs and have barely enough to get by.

When the neighborhood gets nicer, residential rents go up, more expensive “quirky” stores open as there is more street lighting and parking spaces and the commercial rents go up. Food gets more expensive, the landlords may renovate their homes and residential rents go up more, making it unaffordable for the poor to stay.

This disruption not only cause the poor to lose their jobs as it is too expensive to travel from their lower cost areas to the now “nicer” part of town, their children may also not go to school as it may now be too faraway.

The end result usually see a lot more middle income people move to the area, and less lower income people remaining, and not the lower income people getting more opportunities to move to middle income earners.

-- Robin Low

The different challenges faced today.

I was working on a project with a friend to share the benefits technology bring to society, and I was trying to list out the benefits as well as the challenges.

What would life be like when we do not have information on our fingertips, when we do not have the Internet, search engines, when air travel was not so accessible... And that describes the world where I grew up in.

Blackouts occur from time to time, the TV had 4 channels, we had to search the encyclopedia for information we need. There were no text messages, emails to answer, kids do not have "ADD" and you never hear about "Gluten Free" or "Vegan" diets.

I used to be a techie, building my own computer, writing programs to help me search the internet for information, and building my own amplifiers and remote control cars. I could learn all the latest software and computer languages and it is so hard to keep up with even the latest wearable gadget today.

I am also writing a book on social impact, and the shifting of values and beliefs over the years is simply astonishing. In this digital age, people get influenced with what they read about or see online.

My generation used to get their information from the newspapers and when we hear other information which we have not read about, we have to think critically about the extent of the credibility. Yet today, when the Paris bombing happened, the rapid spread of misinformation on social media is creating a lot of conflict between people online.

What's worse is, today, on social media, you may have many friends that think alike, and a piece of misinformation that may concern you may get repeated so much that you believe that it is true.

Even in the Boston Marathon bombing, many people were speculating about who these bombers were, and there is rapid spread of misinformation and it seems that people further away from Boston gets more outraged by some of this information than the locals in Boston who experience the truth.

Today, a lot of knowledge is stored online. People use search engines to find answers, and many of the answers that are presented are not even good. However, with this convenience of technology, there is a danger to treat what you read and what you find online as your beliefs, and when many of your friends have the similar beliefs and share their views online, it reinforces your belief. What's worse is, today can filter away people you don't agree with.

The danger comes from the people who outsource their thinking. When people use technology filter sounds they disagree with, they allow technology to make their choices or to further divide them. This can lead to ideological intolerance, and people today get easily offended by too many things.

Today we are faced with a bombardment of misleading or inaccurate information. We must develop the skills and ability to distinguish the credibility of this information, and we should be more tolerant and receptive to the views of others.

There is a lot of challenges today brought on by technology, and problems cause by technology today. I hope in time, society and culture can catch up and address the ever changing technology, and people can be more tolerant and use technology to find out what they don't know and not reinforce their ideas.

Donald Trump calls for the ban for Muslims to enter the US, this is what happens next

So Donald Trump is getting a lot of attention lately. His campaign, focusing on hate -- hating Mexicans and now Muslims. It is scary how presidential candidate can spew such hate and racism. There is no doubt that he is getting a lot of attention -- drowning out all other presidential candidates.

There are however, consequences when you say things like that.

Mideast Retailer Dumps Trump Products After Muslim Comments

Clearly, if you don't like Donald Trump and what he represents, you can also boycott all Trump Products.

He owns hotels and other products, you can check them out here.

Most of them are quite easy to recognize as you can just avoid "Trump" Products because they have his name on them. He is involved in some other businesses which you can find here on Wikipedia.

Trump also owns stock in Bank of America, Citigroup, Caterpillar Inc., Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Facebook.

Sadly, with his wealth and reach, it is very hard to boycott everything he owns, but we can all try to do so until more businesses will avoid dealing with his brands.

-- Robin Low

5 things to know about 99% of Zuckberg's wealth

Facebook is going out of its way to emphasize that CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pledge to give away 99% of his company shares is not about charity, but philanthropy.

The initiative is set up as an LLC, not as a charitable trust. This means that the LLC can do whatever it wants, including private investments generating profits. And yes, it can retain its profits and not give it to charity.

While charity will certainly be one of the money’s destinations, it will be far from the only one. The money, according to a Facebook SEC filing, will go to “philanthropic, public advocacy, and other activities for the public good.”

If you think Mark Zuckerberg is giving up 99% of his US$45B to Charity, you are wrong. Many rich people do this, and let me explain to you why they are doing this. It is not out of the kindness of their hearts or Altriusm, but rather, it makes economic sense.

1) Pay less taxes

This is a troubling trend and most of the rich do not pay much % of tax as part of their salaries. And yes, if Mark Zuckerberg puts his money into this initiative, 99% of the money will not need to pay capital gains tax.

So in simple terms, "Mark Zuckerberg will transfer ownership of his Facebook stock without paying capital gains taxes." His kids will also have everything, untouched by estate taxes.

2) Its an LLC

As an LLC, you can do whatever kind of investment he wants. It can use SOME to focus on his philanthropic goals, but most of it to generate more profits. Not a bad thing actually as more money it acquires, the more it can use for philanthropic purposes, but it is not primarily for philanthropic goals as it is not setup as a charitable trust.


"The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will pursue its mission by funding non-profit organizations, making private investments and participating in policy debates, in each case with the goal of generating positive impact in areas of great need,” it said. “Any profits from investments in companies will be used to fund additional work to advance the mission.” (From Buzzfeeds)


3) This is not happening immediately.

The Facebook founder is not giving away 99% of his Facebook shares all at once. He will be doing it over the course of the rest of his life.


4) Moving money to his own organization

Rather than give to existing nonprofits, business leaders are increasingly siphoning their fortune into their own organizations.

"Just because you were successful in the for-profit world doesn’t mean that nonprofits are a bunch of bleeding-heart idiots that need you to come in and show them how it’s done,” Ken Berger, the managing director of the social-good data service Algorhythm.


5) Facebook does not need tax benefits

With this move, Zuckerberg no longer need to depend on tax benefits, he is able to give up his stocks, pay less taxes and remain in power of his company.



So is this a good or bad thing?

It is too early to tell, but you can be sure that this is a smart thing for anyone that rich to do.

-- Robin Low

Never Help: Engage, Enable, Empower and Connect

I spoke at School of Visual Arts: Design for Social Innovation on the topic, and the students applied it on the current events -- Syrian Refugee Crisis.

It was very interesting to see that these students had many good ideas. One of them was re-framing what we call them. These refugees are not helpless people. They are moms, teachers, doctors, carpenters, etc. Instead of looking at them at a liability, these survivors can be a valuable resource that can fill jobs which no one want to take, and all they want is an opportunity and a new place they can call home.

Marginalized communities are not helpless and they are not a liability. Communities can help themselves. If we want to support them, all we got to do is engage, enable, empower and connect.

-- Robin Low

CSR Lessons from Shanghai

I was speaking at a B4B event in Shanghai, and the whole line up of speakers was very impressive, with a good mix of experienced social innovators and CSR practitioners.

There are a lot of good initiatives and ideas too. Not really looking at the impact some of these initiatives have created, but they do sound innovative and solve some problems.

1) Buick - Human Traffic Signs (CSR) on road safety



2) Voice of China

The Voice of China, a popular TV program crowdsourced viewers and used their voices to read popular Chinese novels, so that the blind and the illiterate can listen to the novels.

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There are various other cases where big organizations do CSR without "donating" but leveraging on their expertise to create sustainable change.

Of course, being China, there are many people who leverage on accidents and fear to create sale.

A swim coach used this message after a boating disaster in China. "Learn to swim to survive." It did get him more sales and created more visibility to the problem of people not able to swim, however, many people strongly agree that the message was not in good taste, and purely for profits. But taking a step back, I do feel that it is a communications issue and if the message was "Learn to swim, to save lives" It could also promote the importance of swimming, and people should learn it to save the lives of others.


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CSR boosts a company’s brand, manages risk, and just plain saves money. But perhaps most importantly the general public is clamoring for companies to enact good, fair business practices — and most of that public pressure comes through social media.

There are many examples of businesses moved into more sustainable practices by a social media backlash, so is CSR done dues to public feedback or social media? Or does a company need to do CSR because of public feedback?

Feedback through social media is immediate, permanent, and extremely public. When individuals feel strongly about a company’s performance on social or environmental issues, one small voice can quickly become a swarm, difficult for even the most shielded executive to ignore. For this reason, social has become a driving force in many companies’ CSR agendas.

And CSR today is not as primitive as many Asian countries think. Donating a % of profits to charity is not really CSR, but rather, a poor attempt at CSR. CSR today is integration into key business operation. One of the easiest ways to be on the right side of the social media tide is to be proactive — and personal — by listening to feedback and responding in an authentic way.

CSR should not be just donations for sustainability. CSR leadership development creates a cool company to work, and improves employee retention. In many forward thinking organizations, CSR is so in line with business that the word social does not even need to be uttered and business practices will consider many social end environmental aspects before implementing.

Many companies with unsustainable practices are interested in CSR, but CSR cannot "white wash" the pollution they create. CSR should be looking to change the business model or change the product!

When the CSR budget is from Marketing budget and is percentage of profits, sometimes there can be a budget issue with CSR as it is seen as "unimportant" and a cost center, and when profits drop, the budget for CSR tends to follow. This creates a detrimental effect as some programs cannot be terminated halfway and trust will be lost.

CSR can also be co-created by NGO and Corporation and this collaborative engagement is key. Much empathy is needed and it can create a Win-Win situation for both parties. However, the corporate skills and NGO needs must match. It should not be done at the convenience of the corporation, but rather, done together as equals.

CSR should be in the DNA of everyone instead of just a department in the company.

-- Robin Low