rechord the melodies

at jun’s commissioning parade, there was a ‘Blessing By Religious Leaders’. the guests (us) were requested to stand while the religious leaders came out all robed up and prayed for/pronounced their blessings on the graduands. the graduands were in senang-diri (at ease) but with their heads bowed. the religions represented included all the common ones like Islam/Buddhism/Taoism/Hinduism/Catholicism/Sikh/Christianity and a couple others i can’t remember now. yenn expressed her dissatisfaction at the fact that atheism was not represented as well and that any and every atheist amongst the graduands had to bow their heads along with the rest. at that point in time, i agreed with her, because atheists have no god(s) to pray to and that she ought to write in if it really bothered her. we settled with an uneasy (perhaps forced, though i can’t really remember) agreement that it is merely a show portraying the peaceful multi-religious landscape of Singapore.

upon more thought, i still agree with yenn, but i have something to add. monotheistic religions such as Christianity (the one i know best, obviously), Judaism and Islam cannot stand the presence of other religions simply because they are, well, monotheistic. there is but one God – the Lord of the Bible for Christians and Jews, just as there is no other God but Allah for the Muslims. other religions who prayed to other god(s) are counted as false or pagan. the monotheistic religious leaders who were willing to bless the graduands alongside other religious leaders have compromised [some section of] their beliefs. it is clear then that while atheism has been neglected, certain religions have also been misrepresented, which serves to fortify our initial ’sweep under the carpet’ conclusion that the whole thing is just a show. it is indeed a show because i doubt many, if any, guests and graduands really prayed along with the religious leaders for blessings. if there was no true communion with any god(s), then it cannot be classified a spiritual encounter, but merely an appearance of multi-religious harmony. if anyone should like to take it further, the whole blessing by religious leaders thing and the bowing of heads by the graduands is really an act of submission to the state (and not any higher Being), perhaps in gratitude that they have been allowed to practice their faiths freely without fear of persecution/intervention by the state, with the understanding that these same religions involved will continue to promote peace and not strife.

* * *

and i am grateful that we managed to reach a compromise because we both realised that our value systems were in danger of being threatened and that no amount of arguing will lead us to any other satisfactory conclusion anyway. i hope very much that this post hasn’t affected status quo. hmm.

I am greatly puzzled as to why people desire to argue so much about everything under the sun, particularly about sensitive religious issues. Most of the time, nothing good ever comes out of it. What results instead are both parties going away huffing puffing mad with stronger conviction regarding their POV. Perhaps people find it attractive to have intellectual sparring regarding grey areas because it makes life interesting, but frankly, i think it is rather stupid.

For two parties to engage actively in whatever topic, it would require a strong belief or interest in that topic for you to have done sufficient reading to hold up your own in that conversation. This then leads to an intellectual(?) face-off from which a consensus is rarely made. This is incredibly stupid because both sides are probably dogmatic about their views and while they may be willing to accept some of your points, they usually would not adopt your perspective straightaway.

This problem gets worse regarding religious issues. There’s a reason why they are usually sensitive. Just an example- compare a discussion for cloning between two non-believing (of any faith) academics. It would be a simple cloning has its benefits but it also has demerits and there will then be a weighing of whether the benefits outweigh the disadvantages or not. In the same discussion between an unbeliever and a person with a strong conviction in a faith, a moral dimension is added in, during which the believer would quote cloning as ‘playing God’ and interfering with intelligent design so on and so forth. The discussion would, for the believer, transform from a harmless intellectual debate into a personal attack on his belief system. Sometimes, he may get emotional, even irrational, such that the other party wins by default because this person, whose worldview is being challenged, is losing his edge. Does any good arise from this?

Quite obviously not. No consensus can be arrived at regarding such issues as both parties’ worldviews are fundamentally different. Seriously, if you believe in a higher being(s) and consequentially an after-life, you do things quite differently, you do it in reverence, out of worship, fear of consequences etc. The believer would probably dismiss the unbeliever’s argument on the basis that he does not have enlightenment. An unbeliever, be they free-thinkers, agnostics, atheists, has an entirely different worldview where there are doubts of the existence of a higher being(s), and thus regard the argument of a believer as being irrational or impractical for real issues such as cloning. It is really quite similar to why the Cold War broke out- an ideological rift, in which capitalism is fundamentally opposed to communism; capitalism involves the use of market mechanism which will lead to income disequalities and this is unacceptable in communism which believes in a classless society. This ideological rift led to mutual antagonism, aided by a history of mutual mistrust, eventually resulting in the outbreak of the Cold War.

[edit:] In the same way, believers and non-believers can and would behave in a manner that may appear offensive to the other party, but this cannot be helped due to the completely different worldviews that are intrinsic to each belief system. Solutions are needed, but they are not often readily accepted. Racial and religious harmony is that important, but it can only come about through more knowledge, and thus more understanding about the different value systems. Not everybody is ready to do that, and the lack of understanding often leads to (irrational?) fear, which could possibly lead to actions which antagonize the other party further and on goes the vicious cycle.

Sure, a compromise can be reached, resulting in a new school of thought like theistic evolution. Yet this does not satisfy, seen rather obviously from the number of people subscribing to theistic evolution.

This post is really a result of a discussion i had with a friend regarding whether Israel had a right to exist. He thought they did not have the right to exist on Palestinian soil because it was won through underhanded means. He used a modern historical perspective and a socio-political argument. Me? I believe that the Israelis have a moral right to the land, after centuries of Israelite diaspora. Sure, I disagree with the ungodly methods with which they conduct affairs, but this does not change my belief that they are meant to possess that land only because God has allowed it to happen (think, Jews-God’s people. going into the Promised Land).

An unbeliever would argue that my God is an unreasonable God who is being unfair. I say, God is God, He has the power to do whatever He sees fit to do, and I am nothing to go against my God. As much as I’d like to bring up the great and wonderful deeds that the Lord has done, I second the words of Pat Barker under the character of Wilfred Owen in Regeneration, that ‘I don’t think it’s possible to call yourself a Christian and just leave out the awkward bits.’ I myself do not understand why the unfair world works this way, but more knowledgeable Christians have taught me that it is due to sin and everything will work out in God’s own plan. I have yet to comprehend that, I doubt I ever will in this present life, and I question God, but I cannot dispute what He is doing, in the end I still stand on the side of my God. I admit that I am dogmatic regarding certain matters, and no amount of dissuasion will make me change my views, unless of course new information surfaces that allows me to question my own stand on issues. I then ought to know my limits and not try and impose my beliefs on others because I know that the other person has a mindset fundamentally different from mine and it is impossible to attune his beliefs to mine unless of course, there is divine intervention. I say this because I believe it.

I am sorry, I did truly start the post desiring to be objective.

P.S. – if I did not make the thrust of my post clear enough, I state here that I would not appreciate anyone who wants to pick an argument regarding this post, ok?

today, a couple of girlfriends and i met up. and, needing some entertainment, decided to head to paragon toys r’us. there was a trial xbox 360, and seeing as nobody was there, we decided to try it out. none of us have ever played xbox before, so obviously we were dying over and over again, but since there was nobody waiting to play, we continued. when it was my turn, i actually managed to survive by rolling around. then i heard this odd chant going on at the back ‘die die die…hurry up die die die’, and the reflection on the console screen showed 3 mats doing it. my friends turned around, staring in disbelief, which morphed into major irritation. i myself thought they were quite rude. i mean, couldn’t they just wait slightly longer? we weren’t planning on hogging the machine anyway.

the initial irritation i felt towards them gradually turned into puzzlement. i call them ‘mats’ now because we recognise them as, well, ‘mats’. i wonder whether they feel injustice at being labeled in this manner, perhaps even proud of it. what i don’t understand is that, why do they persist in behaving this way and allowing themselves to be stigmatised when they don’t like it? at least within my social circle, being a ‘mat’ has bad connotations.

this goes for myself-
if you refuse to tolerate being labeled, then break free from it. but be yourself, and never lose your identity. respect yourself and others will have to learn to respect you too.

this is especially meaningful to me now.

im a little peeved at my neighbour. we met in the lift. in finding out yesterday that i was from acjc (amazing, she’s lived next to me since i started going to ac, and i’ve always seen her around while im in sch-u), she started firing questions at me because her daughter was interested in coming to acjc. being, of course, extremely proud of ac, i explained as best to her i could about life in acjc. running out of time, i politely told her that i had to leave, and that she could ask me more another time. to that, she turned her nose up at me in obvious disgust, and walked away without saying thanks nor a goodbye. oh, such great manners!

i don’t see what is wrong in me leaving when i am late, especially when i’ve been nice to her. i certainly feel i do not warrant her eyeing me with disgust just because my schedule cannot accomodate hers as and when she likes.

and, i must say, i feel rather terribly childish that im actually irritated enough to blog about it. but, i don’t wanna keep it inside me. so, ooh-la-la.

i feel that some people do not understand issues of faith sufficiently to be able to talk about them. perhaps all that racial harmony drummed into me makes me intolerant of some who speak of religion in a flippant manner.

i know of many who are atheistic, or more accurately agnostic, but understand the desire of others to know a higher Being. and then i know one who is atheistic, and is fiercely anti-seimitic and anti-christian while professing to be a proponent of racial harmony.

that, in itself, is ironic. i have no problems of one being sympathetic to islam over judaism, because the arab-israeli conflict often force us to make a stand as to who is correct. but in such issues, being correct does not necessarily mean that the other in wrong.

learning the origins of the Cold War ought to have instructed you of the many grey areas in politics. the post-post-revisionist stance acknowledges an ideological foundation between capitalism and communism which eventually led to mutual mistrust and mutual antagonism- both the USA and the USSR were at fault for starting the CW.

similarly, the fundamental differences between Islam and Christianity leads to conflict, although these differences have been exploited for political purposes. i do not know enough of the arab-israeli conflict to cite examples, which implies that i shall have to revise my globalisation topic more thoroughly.

it is not enough to push all the blame to israel. they are antagonistic, but so is hezbollah.

i have lost my point. yes, racial harmony. i am not offended when one prefers another religion over christianity. disappointed, sure, but not upset. this is singapore, and we propagate racial harmony. but i get extremely irritated when one claims to embrace racial harmony yet enjoys slamming christianity down. that is more like…everything is fine except for christianity. and, no, not everything that expounds a little on faith is fundamentalist. i would know what fundamentalism is.

i want to do a sequel to this, perhaps after the A’s, when i have the time to read up on the arab-israeli conflict and maybe even the crusades, so that i have better understanding of the ‘history’ of the conflict.

i may be biased, i admit, because i am a christian. but i will try my best to be objective. help me out here.