CLAUD

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Conflict

I was reading someone's blog post about the pastor Rony Tan?

It's quite mind-boggling how people keep focussing on differences, instead of similarities. I think it's quite interesting to note that even in research, people look for trends, and differences between trends to capture what they think is important.

What if we look at our similarities instead? What if we change our world view and see that underlying all those differences and conflict, we are all so very similar? Wouldn't it make us better people?

All religions aim to propagate goodwill and mark the boundaries of morality. So what I do not understand is how people can seek to bend the rules in name of the divine to judge others. Seriously, doesn't anyone see the irony of this? Rony Tan going against the Holy Word to belittle other religions. I see it as the fault of the person, not the religion.

Like I said many times over, it is people who do evil, who wreck havoc in people's lives - not anything else. While I do admit that divinity can and have the possibility of existing, I don't see ghosts killing people have you? Show me one that raises a scythe over you ok? Show me that a bleeding statue of Mother Mary gives humans disease.

SO...my point is, I find it troubling when people use religion to justify their actions when those actions bring harm. It's all in your mind. If you believe that you are doing good, even if clearly you have to violate certain rules to do it, then it's perhaps your way of thinking. I have mine. That's why I'm very curious in finding out the psychology behind people who do such things. What kind of conviction do they have to use divinity to justify their actions?

Rony Tan is at the tip of the ice-berg of the tensions that underlie most societies. I believe in frank and understand discussion, rather than tolerance because one day, that patience is going to run out.

Will you give up a friendship over your religion? Would you rather marry someone else because the one you love cannot convert? Would you abandon your parents because they cannot be Christian? Would you love your kids less because they do not have the same faith as you?

Instead, while believe in something that is unseen, let us also focus on the relationships we have and can build. It is those relationships that make a difference in our life (whatever that difference be positive or negative) and I truly treasure those relationships. We must never lose sight of who we are, that is, we are human and we need one another to survive.

Dying, is for later.

16:08