Is religion sending us to heaven or hell?

By MT Webmaster Last updated Jul 3, 2015

So Tunisia now wants to close down 80 mosques that do not come under state control that incites violence. That is good. But what I want to ask is are you so sure that state-controlled mosques do not also breed hate and incite violence? In fact, maybe I should rewind and ask another question. Could it be that religion itself teaches arrogance, which in turn breeds hate and incites violence?

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarduin

Tunisia plans within a week to close down 80 mosques that remain outside state control for inciting violence, as a countermeasure after the hotel attack that killed 39 people, Prime Minister Habib Essid said yesterday.

The announcement came after a gunman opened fire on a tourist resort hotel in Sousse city, south of the capital. Since its 2011 uprising to oust Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has struggled to manage ultraconservative Islamist movements. – Reuters

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Of Religious Extremism and Foolishness: An Open Letter to all Malaysians

Ashley Greig, Friend of Greater Malaysia

Of late, there has been a worryingly increased number of incidents involving religious extremism, especially so in Malaysia. Almost every day we stumble upon news items and posts on social media about one’s misconceived and misconstrued notions of a certain religion and/or its practices. My question is, why?

Why is there an increase of such cases?

Why is there an increase of ignorance in knowledge?

Why is there an increase of people lacking simple common sense?

Perhaps it’s not an increase at all. Perhaps it has always been there, always in existence. It only seems like an increase probably because of the availability of outlets such as social media for these people to create a ruckus and plant the seeds of disharmony amongst the rakyat.

Every day we wake up to posts regarding religious extremism and fanatics behind them whose sole purpose in life seem to be creating havoc. Of course, most people would be angered and insulted with the accusations found on these posts on social media. The floodgates would be opened, and netizens would start sharing out the posts which would end up going viral; most of them in disagreement and resentment. Then the best part: people from other countries find out and start slapping labels on us – extremist, fanatic, brainless, a joke among a tonne of others. We are then reduced to nothing but a laughing stock.

Back to my question earlier: why? (READ MORE HERE)

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More than 60 people have so far died in the attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France, and the death toll is expected to rise. And that is for only one day, mind you. If we total the number of deaths since just the beginning of this year the figure is going to shock you.

Here we are trying to reduce the death toll from traffic accidents on Malaysian roads from 12,000 to only 6,000 a year or trying to stop people from smoking to reduce the death rate from lung cancer and even more people die in the name of God. It does make you wonder why we even bother.

According to Reuters, Tunisia plans to close down 80 mosques that is said ‘remain outside state control’ for inciting violence. Back in 2008 I wrote about Malaysian mosques that come under state control that are inciting violence.

And for that I was detained for the crime of insulting Islam whereas it was not Islam that I was whacking but the state. I had alleged that the Friday prayer sermons are inciting Muslims to hate the non-Muslims. And that is considered as insulting Islam.

What if I had said there are too many cases of priests having sex with boys and that the church should do something about it? Would that be considered as insulting Christianity? In the first place even the hierarchy of priests is not a Christian thing but a custom borrowed from the pre-Christianity religions. And that was what Jesus was trying to eradicate.

I find that religion breeds arrogance. Religionists might deny that and argue that whatever they are teaching is actually the opposite, humility. True, the religionists do not directly preach arrogance. But this is what ultimately sinks into the heads of the very narrow-minded sheep.

It is like the Nazis brainwashing the children from school that Germans are the superior race. They do not even need to say that the non-Germans are an inferior race. But after years of brainwashing children with the ‘fact’ that Germans are a superior race these children grow up to become adults with the notion that non-Germans are inferior people.

Religious violence has always been around since religion was first invented. The Jews were at one time guilty of it until the Romans wiped out the dissidents and the rest became very passive and did not dare utter a peep.

Then came the breakaway Jewish Jesus movement and the Romans whacked them, too. Then this breakaway Jewish Jesus movement came under state control and became passive as well, until the state began to promote state-sponsored violence.

And now, of course, we have the new-kid-on-the-block, the Muslims, who have taken over from where the Jews and Christians left off. And some of the violence is also state-sponsored or started as state-sponsored then got out of hand (like, for example, the Talibans, which is a US-Pakistan creation).

Basically, the violence is the result of arrogance. And believers of religions are indoctrinated into becoming arrogant. The message to become arrogant is not a direct and open message. But the underlying message is still there.

We are the chosen one. That means the others are not chosen. So that is something to be arrogant about.

Only we shall go to heaven. That means the others are going to hell. So that is something to be arrogant about.

Only we are followers to the true religion. That means the others are following false religions. So that is something to be arrogant about.

Only we are right. That means the others are wrong. So that is something to be arrogant about.

Ours is the final religion to replace all religions before this and there shall be no more religions after this. That means all other religions are bullshit. So that is something to be arrogant about.

No religionist will say that all religions are the same and are equal and all good people will go to heaven and all evil people will go to hell never mind what religion they may believe in or follow. If they say this then there would be no superiority complex and no more arrogance.

But religionists will not say this. In fact, they are forbidden from saying this because it will contradict what they are trying to teach: which is we are right and the others are wrong, ours is true and the others are false, etc.

If you speak to Muslims and suggest that certain things they believe in may not be true they get very high-and-mighty and holier-than-thou. They will reply that you know nothing and that you should go learn about Islam first before you talk.

They assume that since you said something they do not agree with it can only mean this is because you are ignorant and have never studied Islam and that if you had you would not contradict their beliefs. It cannot register in their minds that you have, in fact, studied Islam and the reason you contradict their beliefs is because you are learned rather than ignorant.

This is the arrogant streak that they possess, which they do not even realise they possess and which they do not even recognise as arrogance. They get very high-and-mighty and holier-than-thou if you say something they do not agree with. Even Christians are like this and it is nothing short of arrogance.

And history has taught us that time and time again when a community or society is arrogant and feels that it is superior to others it resorts to violence. Take the US as an example. Its religion is western democracy cum capitalism and communism cum socialism is its enemy. So it has no issues about going to war in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., so that western-style democracy can also be implemented in those countries.

Leaders like Marcos, Suharto and many more were evil by modern standards. But they were democrats. Hence America allowed them to rule. If Marcos, Suharto and the others had tried to turn their ‘democratic’ countries into communist countries then America would have toppled them long before they fell.

This is America’s arrogance. You follow my true religion of western democracy and you can be as evil as you want. However, if you try to adopt some other non-western democratic ‘religion’ then we will topple you. It does not matter whether you are good or evil. What matters is the ‘religion’ you follow. And this is what is happening in the world of religions as well. It is the arrogance that religions breeds.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK