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tgopal · Junior Member Joined: 17 Mar 2008 Posts: 40

And that is MY RELIGION!!!! ALL of YOU are WRONG! ALL of you are going to HELL !!!"

By Michael Chick

Opening Statement:
All Major Religions today are of either Middle-Eastern or of Indian origin.

For Malaysia to accept it's multi-religious people's, Malaysian citizens first need to understand the possibilities of perspectives which exist on any religion issues. Without this fundamental understanding, there can be no tolerance, bar acceptance.

Firstly, one has to know that there are 5 possibilities:

1) All Religions are CORRECT

(The Sai Baba-type point of view)

2) All Religions are WRONG

(The Atheist-type point of View)

3) Some Religions are correct

(The Freethinker's-type point of view)

4) One Religion is Correct

(The religio-centric point of view)

5) All Religions are man-made rituals.

The concept of "God" remains beyond man's grasp.

(The Agnostic-type point of view)

Remember that I'm not asking you to embrace someone else's religion. Rather, just be made aware of the 5 possible scenarios. So the possibilities are explained in more detail below (with a brief history lesson thrown in for free)

1) All Religions are CORRECT:

From the Sai Baba-type perspective, "All religions are good. And all religions work toward the common goal. It does not matter which religion you belong to, they all walk the same path. And that "Love is God". As long as you do good deeds, it will be alright.

2) All Religions are WRONG:

From the Atheist's point of view, there is NO GOD. The Creation Theory is but a Myth. Darwin's Theory of Evolution explains how the single-cell Amoeba evolved to become Man over the period of millions of years. Some Darwinians claim today that The East African "Taung Girl, circa 2 million yrs old" is the oldest known "human". National Geographic discussed extensively on this. Richard Dawkins claims that "...To believe in the "Creation Story" would be a great insult to Nature, and her wonderful ability to adapt and evolve into what we are today..."

3) Some Religions are CORRECT:

From the Free-Thinker's point of view, there are good religions, and there are bad religions. Those that teach good, are Good Religions. Similarly, those that teach bad are Bad Religions. Freethinkers believe that there is a God, but not via existing religions. As long as you do good, you are alright.

4) ONE Religion is CORRECT:

"And that is MY RELIGION!!!! ALL of YOU are WRONG! ALL of you are going to HELL !!!"

This is the typical "religio-centric" pattern of behavior practiced by most people. They will make no provision for acceptance of any kind. Conversion of others to be "just like themselves" becomes a passion. They get easily upset when someone tries to tell them that "their religion is incorrect". But feel good whilst among their fellow worshipers. As they say, "Birds of a feather...." It is also here where most of the problems arise. One of it frequently manifests itself in the Monotheistic Religions vs Polytheistic Religions "battle". (Which usually ends up sounding much like the "Canon vs Nikon" Battles. Photography buffs will know exactly what I mean.)

(Hold your Horses. I'm not done yet.)

Each monotheistic religion striving to "out-do" the other, by trying to bring in "new recruits" into their flock (Just like MLM's), never ever realizing, or stopping to think that they actually "originated" from the same Middle Eastern Religious text called "The Old Testament", or the "Talmud/ Torah". At this juncture, I would quote the Surah 3:3 from the Koran:

"... The Talmud/ Torah, The Kitab/ Injil and the Koran are the words of Allah.."

This verse seems to suggest that all Middle-Eastern Religious Books can be and should be freely inter-changeably read. And that the Torah/Talmud/ Kitab/ Injil Allah are one and the same.

Below is a brief Archaeological "time-line" of these Middle-Eastern

Books:

200BC 30-120AD 200-400AD 800AD

====== ======= ======== =====

Torah/Talmud Kitab/ Injil Constantinople's Rewrite Koran

Yes, "The Old Testament" aka the Torah/ Talmud, was only rewritten by hand from memory at circa 200BC. The Jews were by then, conquered by the Babylonians for several hundred years and during captivity, had every single copy of their Holy Books destroyed by the Babylonians. There are no surviving copies of any Old Testament/ Talmud/ Torah found pre-200BC. And Constantinople edited and assembled the Bible into it's present "canonized form". He, and the next 6 Roman Emperors made continuous changes and amendments to the Bible. The horrific Inquisition and the Crusade/ Jihad Wars started shortly after that.

Today, after centuries of edits, and re-edits, less than 25% of known texts made it into today's Bible. The rest of the "rejected" books are called "Gnostic Bibles". The "rejected" Hebrew texts of the Torah/Talmud are called the "Kaballah" and the "Mishnah". The "not-so-important" books of the Koran are called the "Hadith's"; which are subsequently broken down further into Class 1,2 &3 Hadiths.

And if we are to look at the bigger picture:

12,000BC 8,000BC 6,000BC 500BC 1AD 800AD

==== ===== ==== ====== =========

Egyptian Hinduism Judaism Buddhism Christianity Islam

This is just an FYI. It is not meant to say which is older or better; so don't give me the "See I-told-you-so attitude". There are many many other religions interspersed between The Egyptian and Buddhism period. Sumerian, Mesopotamian, Celtic Wiccan, Mayan, Greek and so on just to name a few. And many more new religions created post-Islamic days.

(I find it cute that some locals say that Christianity is a "White-Man's Religion". This could not be further from the Truth. Christianity is but another Middle Eastern Religion. Another FYI: 85% of Asians profess a religion. 85% of Europeans DO NOT profess a religion. Yet another FYI: The First Buddha Statue was sculpted by the Afghanistani's. And the oldest (largest) standing Buddha Statue was blown up by the Talibans in Afghanistan just not too long ago.)

If anyone says "Older means Better", then I'd point you to the Animistic and Paganistic rituals which pre-date EVERYTHING on the above scale dating circa 1.5million years old. Most of Malaya was Animistic up until 1,800 years ago when Hinduism was brought over by the Gujarati.

Hinduism was the main-stay for 15 Centuries, until Islam arrived; also brought in by the Gujarati and Cheng Ho's 7 missions. The center for the spread of Islam into the region was out of Pasai, Acheh, Indonesia. Christianity eradicated Head-Hunting in Borneo, and as a result, 75% of Borneo is Christian today.

Now that you all have a "bird's eye-view" of religions, (and a brief history lesson) we may now proceed to the 5th and last possibility.

5) All Religions are man-made rituals. The concept of "God" remains beyond man's grasp. The Agnostics believe that you can neither prove or disprove the existence of God. Is God a concept? Or is God an Entity? And if God is All-Supreme, He does not need mortals to Worship Him. Because He is way beyond all of that. The Agnostics also believe that Religion is "The Perfect Form of Human Behavioral Control". This includes self-internalized submissive obedience and Voluntary Monetary contributions independent and in addition to Governmental Taxes. "You must be good because God is watching you 24/7", "You will suffer eternal damnation, or be reborn as a dog" and "God told me to tell you...." are but perfect vehicles for religions to thrive.

Actually, Yes, there is a 6th category. They believe that "God" is a Physical Alien Life Form, coming via Planet Nibiru/ Planet X; but that is a discussion reserved for another day.

For now, The above 5 categories will suffice for Malaysians to begin to understand the overview of Global Religious Perspectives. One should certainly do much self-searching to determine which of the above 5 categories you fall in. In the Mathematical World of pure-probability, the above 5 categories should attain 20% each. Hopefully, you will begin to see just how tolerant, or intolerant you are. Now we can start discussions on acceptance of each other's religions (or the lack of it). The final question: Is Malaysia ready for "Inter-Faith" Discussions?

Parting words:

Please quit saying "My God is better than your God". And please co-exist in Harmony.

rishi · Senior Member Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 620

nice one

rishi · Senior Member Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 620

nice one