I am a muslim. I love my religion. I think of God as much as I think of sex. This speaks volumes for my love of God, because I am a clandestine sex addict. However, I hate the people that make up my religion. I can't stand the fact that religion, which is a personal relationship everyone has with God, is over-zealously turned into public displays of affection for God. I can't stand the fact that I am persecuted merely because I do not behave like most muslims do. I can't stand the fact that fellow muslims exert themselves on me and force me to do things I do not want to do. Most of all, I can't stand the fact how religion in Malaysia divides us.
Forget faint attempts of fostering religious and racial tolerance in school, or the widely condemned National Service, or even the hypocritical group photos our religious leaders take once a year on some special occation. Religion, while having its obvious advantages of discipline and order in life, brings about distinct differences between people. For instance, I would say that the best way to foster any sort of ties and bonding amongst races in Malaysia is for everyone to have meals together as a group. However, the thing that stops everyone from doing this is the fact that not only do we have our quirks for food, we also have religion to contend with. Islam says muslims cannot touch non-halal food, Buddhism states to stay away from meats and to try to be vegetarians, Hindus abhore beef, Christians on the other hand, approve almost everything bar protected species meats. See how difficult it is to get a group of people to eat together?
Besides this, there is the case of division amongst members of a certain religion itself. There are hundreds of Christian denominations, hundreds of muslim sects, wide ranging interpretations on key issues in every religion and religious leaders that can't even agree to disagree. Heck, you can't even get UMNO and PAS to collaborate and work together. Squabble amongst ourselves. Thats all we can do. True to form, I've got plenty to say regarding my "love affair" with JAIS, the Jews and many other recurring religious topics. I'll save that for another time.
So, I've come up with a theory. That for as long as religion remains an integral part of our lives, we shall remain, in essence, Malaysian only by name. We do not live together, would want nothing of each other and would continue to discriminate. I am living in discrimination now, as with all of you, champions of your religions. I'll lower mine if you're willing to lower yours.
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In the news today:
The Christian Priests in the land downunder seem to share my analogy of my love of God. They are requesting for celibacy to be optional (See, I can now liken myself to a priest. We all have our needs =) ). The Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister has asked the AG's office to probe recent complaints regarding one of the many raids conducted by the Islamic Religious Affairs Department of Kuala Lumpur (Nothing will come out of this, because the overzealous bed-wetting-mother-molesting-beastialist-perverts working for JAWI have political and religious clout). The Jewish and Gypsy communities mark the 60th anniversary of liberation at Auschwitz (If you hate the place so much, why not burn it down and redevelop it into a casino with themeparks, a mall and too many hotels for my liking?). Question is, why is religion such a big deal? Is my understanding of personal relationships with God flawed?
I ask myself too many questions sometimes.
Forget faint attempts of fostering religious and racial tolerance in school, or the widely condemned National Service, or even the hypocritical group photos our religious leaders take once a year on some special occation. Religion, while having its obvious advantages of discipline and order in life, brings about distinct differences between people. For instance, I would say that the best way to foster any sort of ties and bonding amongst races in Malaysia is for everyone to have meals together as a group. However, the thing that stops everyone from doing this is the fact that not only do we have our quirks for food, we also have religion to contend with. Islam says muslims cannot touch non-halal food, Buddhism states to stay away from meats and to try to be vegetarians, Hindus abhore beef, Christians on the other hand, approve almost everything bar protected species meats. See how difficult it is to get a group of people to eat together?
Besides this, there is the case of division amongst members of a certain religion itself. There are hundreds of Christian denominations, hundreds of muslim sects, wide ranging interpretations on key issues in every religion and religious leaders that can't even agree to disagree. Heck, you can't even get UMNO and PAS to collaborate and work together. Squabble amongst ourselves. Thats all we can do. True to form, I've got plenty to say regarding my "love affair" with JAIS, the Jews and many other recurring religious topics. I'll save that for another time.
So, I've come up with a theory. That for as long as religion remains an integral part of our lives, we shall remain, in essence, Malaysian only by name. We do not live together, would want nothing of each other and would continue to discriminate. I am living in discrimination now, as with all of you, champions of your religions. I'll lower mine if you're willing to lower yours.
************************************************************************************
In the news today:
The Christian Priests in the land downunder seem to share my analogy of my love of God. They are requesting for celibacy to be optional (See, I can now liken myself to a priest. We all have our needs =) ). The Culture, Arts and Tourism Minister has asked the AG's office to probe recent complaints regarding one of the many raids conducted by the Islamic Religious Affairs Department of Kuala Lumpur (Nothing will come out of this, because the overzealous bed-wetting-mother-molesting-beastialist-perverts working for JAWI have political and religious clout). The Jewish and Gypsy communities mark the 60th anniversary of liberation at Auschwitz (If you hate the place so much, why not burn it down and redevelop it into a casino with themeparks, a mall and too many hotels for my liking?). Question is, why is religion such a big deal? Is my understanding of personal relationships with God flawed?
I ask myself too many questions sometimes.
2 comments:
everything you said is so damn true..
As You've said many times, great minds think alike.
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