A Case for Separation… and Understanding
“Why does God need you to defend him?
It must be because you think you are more powerful than your God.
If you think your God is weaker than you, that’s not much of a faith.
Does it not follow, then, that people who fight wars for religion don’t have much faith?”
The above is an excerpt from Paul Arden’s 2007 book “God Explained in a Taxi Ride”. A small description of this particular ‘rebel’ author is that he used to be Executive Creative Director for an advertising firm. I myself don’t really know him well, just that I liked his books a lot. Go check him out!
All right, back to the topic. All the while, since the time when I was conscious about things like gods, religions and churches (or any other places of worship, chose churches for simplicity sake), I have always instinctively lumped all three altogether. Being based in Singapore, discussion of religious issues has always been regarded as sensitive, due to the plurality of our society, also partly due to the success of our National Education. The plurality nature of society also brings stereotypes of various religions as there are limitations of understanding others. Because of that, I would shun against discussing religions openly to prevent misunderstanding to arise until quite recently.
In my past contact with History education, wars are fought for three reasons, for God, for Glory and for Gold. Given that God is an all-round supernatural, he would most probably be more powerful than all humans combined. And why would there be a need for a war to protect him (or her)? I would thus regard God as a human invention that gives people hope and some explanation of things otherwise unexplained. A bold assumption would be that god is a manifestation of the subconscious mind as humans are generally not that strong to hold for themselves. Looking back at history, churches are institutions to maintain social order and moral integrity by imposing them on people’s minds. Religion is a motive for people to follow and would be manifestations of the institutions. Throughout history, we can see that it would be the religious institutes, and not the laws, that are the ones upholding the society’s integrity. Secular governments often set their laws based on moral integrity and many of these laws could most probably have religious backgrounds. However, the abovementioned remains bold and unrestrained. In all good faith, I hope not to incur any wrath around here, and comments are well appreciated.
Happy New Year!
The author (a.k.a. me) is a person of science and does not believe in the supernatural. I remain a staunch atheist. (“But, won’t a strong belief in something, such as the non-existence of a god, be a religion?” (From the same book.))
-异客拍客-
It must be because you think you are more powerful than your God.
If you think your God is weaker than you, that’s not much of a faith.
Does it not follow, then, that people who fight wars for religion don’t have much faith?”
The above is an excerpt from Paul Arden’s 2007 book “God Explained in a Taxi Ride”. A small description of this particular ‘rebel’ author is that he used to be Executive Creative Director for an advertising firm. I myself don’t really know him well, just that I liked his books a lot. Go check him out!
All right, back to the topic. All the while, since the time when I was conscious about things like gods, religions and churches (or any other places of worship, chose churches for simplicity sake), I have always instinctively lumped all three altogether. Being based in Singapore, discussion of religious issues has always been regarded as sensitive, due to the plurality of our society, also partly due to the success of our National Education. The plurality nature of society also brings stereotypes of various religions as there are limitations of understanding others. Because of that, I would shun against discussing religions openly to prevent misunderstanding to arise until quite recently.
In my past contact with History education, wars are fought for three reasons, for God, for Glory and for Gold. Given that God is an all-round supernatural, he would most probably be more powerful than all humans combined. And why would there be a need for a war to protect him (or her)? I would thus regard God as a human invention that gives people hope and some explanation of things otherwise unexplained. A bold assumption would be that god is a manifestation of the subconscious mind as humans are generally not that strong to hold for themselves. Looking back at history, churches are institutions to maintain social order and moral integrity by imposing them on people’s minds. Religion is a motive for people to follow and would be manifestations of the institutions. Throughout history, we can see that it would be the religious institutes, and not the laws, that are the ones upholding the society’s integrity. Secular governments often set their laws based on moral integrity and many of these laws could most probably have religious backgrounds. However, the abovementioned remains bold and unrestrained. In all good faith, I hope not to incur any wrath around here, and comments are well appreciated.
Happy New Year!
The author (a.k.a. me) is a person of science and does not believe in the supernatural. I remain a staunch atheist. (“But, won’t a strong belief in something, such as the non-existence of a god, be a religion?” (From the same book.))
-异客拍客-
posted by fukepaike at 1:00 AM
2 Comments:
Hmm... your post is like 蜻蜓点水, touches a bit on very sensitive issues, yet not over doing it. Good job.
But I think at the end of the day, a word rules everything - 'subjectivity'. Some people think there is a God, some think there isn't. Whatever it is, it is ultimately the what you believe that matters.
Dakepaike
Purposely like dat one. Dun dare to go deep. But muz scream abt it to assert my stand against some people frm such associations jioing me.
But i muz sae that it is to each of his own to define, i wrote this to express my own tots... Haha!
-异客拍客-
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