Religion

i am aware that i am treading into a potential minefield without a minesweeper in my hand when broaching the above topic.

how am i supposed to know which religion is the true religion? just because someone follows a certain faith does not necessarily mean it is the right path. perhaps no one religion contains all the truth of the world. perhaps every religion contains fragments of the truth and it is our responsibility to identify those fragments and piece them together. or perhaps there are no gods. but how can i know for sure?

there are 3200 religions in the world since the start of time. since all of them cannot be correct, is it wrong of me to assume that all of them are wrong? the probability of a single religion being correct is 0.0003125. it would appear the odds are stacked against religion. since the dawn of mankind, religion has evolved from polytheism to monotheism. so am i wrong to extrapolate this data and predict a day when it becomes zero-theism?

i guess some explanation about how i grew up would go a long way into explaining my current predicament. i grew up in a Buddhist family. since young, i've been brought to temples to pray to deities and burn joss sticks/papers to ask for good fortune, and the like. i did not really understand what i was doing but i just followed my parent's instructions, not unlike every other obedient child out there. i still remember i always used the same phrases and i recited those same lines very sincerely. i pray for tua pek kong to let me grow taller faster, and to keep my family safe and sound. for close to 15 years i recited those phrases dutifully. as if the gods wanted to play a cruel joke on me, it would appear that they put a cap on my height. or maybe they heard my prayers but were powerless to help me with such a trivial request. or maybe they don't even exist. fair enough, my family is still safe and sound, but should i credit this achievement to the Taoist/Christian/Buddhist/Sikh/Islamic god? then comes this interesting turn of events. at 16 years old i stopped reciting those phrases. i simply just stuck the joss stick into the urn. lo and behold! i'm still floundering at the same height. and my family is still safe and sound! so tell me, based on logic, what is correct? it's akin to do an mcq test with answers given. you made a mistake and is given the correct answer but still adamantly put in the same wrong answer for the next test. perhaps with regards to faith, there are no answers. so tell me, why even believe in something that has no answers?

chris langan remembers asking his parents about religion at 5 years old and being disappointed with the answers he got. i took a longer time. still, i eventually asked my parents about religion at 21 years old. i ended up facing the same disappointment as chris langan. but before i go any further, i need to enquire as to whether you think that a curious mind is a sign of intelligence. would you prefer a child to be inquisitive and ask and question and debate or would you rather a child be obedient and servient and blindly accept everything spoken to be the truth of the world?

as i grew older, i began to question what i was doing and the significance behind the actions. as i could not get satisfactory responses from my parents, i embarked on a quest for answers. i've researched into religion as a whole, seeking answers from a 3rd person perspective. i place myself outside of the religion and ponder whether certain actions are rational. not unlike how you would ponder a science question. first you create the hypothesis, test its actuality, and then you see if it's true or false. if it's true then it gets accepted as a fact until someone else disproves it. if it's false then it gets rejected until someone else proves that it is correct (it doesn't stay false always). otherwise it is undisputedly incorrect and irrefutably wrong. and then it's back to the drawing board. i guess this is where i've erred. religion is based more on faith and belief, whereas science is based on logic and reasoning. hence, it is inappropriate to use one to argue the other.

i remember this rather peculiar incident. my parents very enthusiastically went to the Buddhist library and borrowed some books regarding the origins of the Buddhist faith and answers as to what Buddhists really believe in. i soaked up all that information like a sponge and was inspired. according to the reverend who penned that book, what my parents have been doing all these years are just some traditional rites which have no correlation to the Buddhist faith at all. i eagerly shared this insight with them, only to earn myself a sharp rebuke. now stand in my shoes for a moment and consider my feelings.

when i weigh the feelings of upset-ness against that of amusement, i find that the scales tip over at the amusement side. i'm amused that they refuse to see the truth about the whole matter. amused but resigned. yet who am i to question my parents, who have brought me up and clothed me and fed me? till today, despite the fact that i do not believe in any religion, i still burn joss sticks when they ask me to; the reason not being blind faith, but rather more out of filial piety.

for most of my peers, the christian faith was thrust upon them since young. hence, unless I'm very much mistaken, they did not have to make a conscious decision to pick and choose which faith to subscribe to. whereas i was brought up in a different environment. it's the same thing as going to the supermarket and seeing several brands of milk - you would want to pick and choose the one that appeals to you the most. on my (some would say childish) quest of understanding more about the various religions, it was inevitable that this would happen. I've read about Christianity and the bloody crusades and how a single line from the Pope can incite so much violence against the 'infidels'. a friend tells me how she feels that God certainly would not have condoned the Crusades, but the 2nd Pope certainly felt that God mandated the Crusades. So tell me, why can the same phrases in the Bible evoke such radically different views? i've read about the conflict between the protestants and the Catholics in Ireland. read about the Spanish Inquisition. i've seen recently how the Buddhist monks in Burma and Tibet use their faith as a political tool. in my book, monks are supposed to follow a strict code of conduct to seek enlightenment; not rally in the capital and attempt political manoeuvrings. all that, and more. you'll find that almost every other religion has its own dark past. the point is, i cannot bring myself to place faith in a religion that's tainted with bloodshed and anguish. the fact that religion is open to interpretation (which explains how come the christian faith is split into several sects who disagree with one another whether gays should be discriminated against or how to choose their next Pope/ or how the Buddhist faith is split into the 3 major sects) exacerbates the problem - who should i believe? religion is dictated by statements which are open to different interpretations and perceptions. since none of us earthly beings are perfect, our interpretations would be imperfect. most of all, I cannot ignore the wrongs done in religion's name - the sex scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and our very own Singaporean version of Pastor Joaquim Kang embezzling $5.5million from his church or how Hitler used it to embolden Germans against all of Europe in WWII or how George Bush said God mandated him to attack Iraq only to return empty handed with no weapons of mass destruction but with the oilfields secured. i may not have a religion to tell me what's right and wrong, but i'm guided by my own (some would say flawed) moral compass and the actions above are certainly 'evil' to me. which brings to mind a phrase I've chanced upon somewhere: religion is seen by the commoners as true, by the scholars as false, and by the politicians as useful.

i am but just another being in this world, and the right to pass judgment is not mine. i would like to read more and understand more and learn more. i've read several books and find that i subscribe to the agnostic viewpoint. since i i cannot see for myself a corporeal almighty being, i find it hard to believe in his/her existence. since i cannot disprove his/her existence with current available evidence, i cannot unequivocably disregard the possibility of their presence.

i have a friend tell me that he/she feels that people with religion have no mental fortitude. that they have this need to believe that their lives would not come to an end after the finite number of years spent on this world and as a result they lead a pale imitation of what would otherwise be a more glorious life. in this i beg to differ. i know of religious people who are highly dedicated people who set out to accomplish whatever endeavors they have set their hearts on. however, i agree that religious believers generally believe that their time spent on earth will not come to an end when they die. they would go to a better place without frustration and anger and guilt and unhappiness and with 72 virgins (believe it or not) and they take comfort in that. terrorists are emboldened to walk into a crowd with bombs strapped to their bodies and blow themselves and everyone around them up precisely because of this reason. they are brainwashed to believe that for dying as a martyr, they go to heaven. if we didn't have religion, then they cannot possibly be manipulated to the same magnitude as compared to if they believe they would go to heaven for their self-claimed righteous acts. imagine if those terrorists did not have this religious facade to hide behind. they would certainly think twice before ending their lives if the moral excuse of going to a better place did not exist. of course we shouldn't place the blame solely on religion. but it is dangerous for the reason that it is susceptible to such abuse. i am more of the opinion that when we die, we die. that's why we should all strive to make life as meaningful as possible here and now, instead of trying to change the world and solve a problem with dramatic deaths.

i've also read the whole creationism vs evolution argument; and often ponder if God created us then who created God? and thereafter? my friend tells me that God is uncreated and He just simply has always existed. we live in a created world and so we understand things in terms of its creation. God however, created our world and being it’s creator doesn’t necessarily mean that He therefore had to be created. God works in a different context from man and He just simply exists, has always existed, is existing and will always exist. it’s a difficult idea to completely understand because we attach a finite quality to everything but if we can accept that God is of a different nature and quality then maybe we can accept this? on this point we must agree to disagree then.

the above views are solely my own and i regret if i have challenged the sensibilities of certain people. having said that, i do have some really fun-loving, peaceful, intellectual, brilliant friends who adhere to certain faiths and i wish to keep their friendship. all these people have helped shape my life in one way or another and i would not be the same person without which. for that i am grateful. just because we share differing views doesn't mean that we must label each other as infidels and kill. i find more sense in peaceful intellectual argument.

one last point. i happen to know a few christian families whose dads are atheist but the rest of the family are believers. this invokes several questions in my mind. are males less likely to believe in religion? do genes play a part in shaping a person's belief? perhaps one day scientists can uncover the religious gene. take this example: the father is non religious but the mother is religious. so if you draw a punnet square and if you are able to determine whether the religious gene is recessive or autosomal, then by mathematical calculation you should get a certain proportion of children who are more likely to be religious. food for thought eh. maybe i am thinking too much for my own good.


Are not all religions strange to those who stand outside of them?