was in the mrt today after visiting my mum and as usual, there were conversations that went on between people. today, one particular conversation caught my attention. it was between a couple. or, well, not a couple couple yet if you know what i mean... the guy was obviously trying very hard to get the conversation going and the girl was giving him short and sometimes one-word answers. but it was not as though she was not interested in answering him nor was she not interested in the conversation. i guessed she was trying very hard to calibrate her response such that she could come across as interested yet not hard up. hmmm, or perhaps, she was just simply trying to act cute. ha ha! anyway, the conversation went on and on and the topics they spoke about ranged from eye lashes to buying cars to rashes to type of food they like to eat to cost of driving to work la la la... ya, you got it. it was most unfocused. and many a times, i had to control my eyes from rolling. but one particular topic caught my attention. it was about religion. more specifically, the guy told the girl that his family is currently in the midst of a `religion war'.
he shared that his maternal grandma is very sickly and now hospitalized. his grandma is buddhist and most of his family are too. and what happened was that one of his aunt, who had converted to christianity, is now trying to convert the grandma. this aunt had consistently asked her church member to come to the hospital bed and pray. and now, the aunt wants to do the necessary rituals to convert her before the grandma dies. this irked his aunts, who are not christians. as for his mum and family, they are also buddhist but wanted to keep away from this squabble but in the end they were dragged in. as a result, the family is now fragmented with one side at war with the other over this issue.
as i listened, i realized how common our lives are. it was so similar to my own experience with my sis when she tried to convert my dad before his demise. this was despite his insistence that he did not want to do so and have cried many times saying that my sis was forcing him to do something against his will. my family had further fragmented after my dad passed away in 2008 as i had stopped her from converting him at his deathbed. my sis did not want to talk to me since then and has remained hostile ever since. it was regretable but i had to do what my dad had wanted and made explicitly clear to all of us.
far as i am concerned, a person's religion choice is a very personal issue. and the decision whether to convert or not must solely lie on that person himself/ herself. it must be done when the person is capable of making that decision. getting a person converted when he/ she is sickly and probably not in the right frame of mind to make that decision is not ethical and totally wrong. to me, whether it is a singular god or nirvana or whether a particular person is a prophet or god is not necessarily the point. different beliefs have different roots and the point is - they are all right, they are all correct. despite the different practises, they all preach common values of love and respect. and if this is so, religions must bring families together and not break families. and in a pluralistic society such as singapore, it is very common to have family members believing in different faiths. if we can celebrate the common space of our different religions and respect each other's beliefs, having family members with different faiths may even bond the family (and the society) further. but if we chose to be superficial and try to convert people based on self-centric and ethnocentric i-am-better-than-you mentality, it will only break the family and the society.
i think we have a long long way to go before people can truly respect each other's religion.
sighs...
ps: as for the conversation, the guy did not put a stand on his views, rather he avoided the whole issue and said something like: "oh, i was so stressed that i dreamed about it. and in my dream, my grandma told me she wanted to continue being taoist..." hmmm, talking about being confused... heh heh.
he shared that his maternal grandma is very sickly and now hospitalized. his grandma is buddhist and most of his family are too. and what happened was that one of his aunt, who had converted to christianity, is now trying to convert the grandma. this aunt had consistently asked her church member to come to the hospital bed and pray. and now, the aunt wants to do the necessary rituals to convert her before the grandma dies. this irked his aunts, who are not christians. as for his mum and family, they are also buddhist but wanted to keep away from this squabble but in the end they were dragged in. as a result, the family is now fragmented with one side at war with the other over this issue.
as i listened, i realized how common our lives are. it was so similar to my own experience with my sis when she tried to convert my dad before his demise. this was despite his insistence that he did not want to do so and have cried many times saying that my sis was forcing him to do something against his will. my family had further fragmented after my dad passed away in 2008 as i had stopped her from converting him at his deathbed. my sis did not want to talk to me since then and has remained hostile ever since. it was regretable but i had to do what my dad had wanted and made explicitly clear to all of us.
far as i am concerned, a person's religion choice is a very personal issue. and the decision whether to convert or not must solely lie on that person himself/ herself. it must be done when the person is capable of making that decision. getting a person converted when he/ she is sickly and probably not in the right frame of mind to make that decision is not ethical and totally wrong. to me, whether it is a singular god or nirvana or whether a particular person is a prophet or god is not necessarily the point. different beliefs have different roots and the point is - they are all right, they are all correct. despite the different practises, they all preach common values of love and respect. and if this is so, religions must bring families together and not break families. and in a pluralistic society such as singapore, it is very common to have family members believing in different faiths. if we can celebrate the common space of our different religions and respect each other's beliefs, having family members with different faiths may even bond the family (and the society) further. but if we chose to be superficial and try to convert people based on self-centric and ethnocentric i-am-better-than-you mentality, it will only break the family and the society.
i think we have a long long way to go before people can truly respect each other's religion.
sighs...
ps: as for the conversation, the guy did not put a stand on his views, rather he avoided the whole issue and said something like: "oh, i was so stressed that i dreamed about it. and in my dream, my grandma told me she wanted to continue being taoist..." hmmm, talking about being confused... heh heh.
2 comments:
i hesitated to comment on this but....
As a prelude, let me first state that i am no longer religious & have more rational view of life/religion. And i am not taking sides with anyone:
THE (or one of the) "problem(s)" with christian teachings is that it is "a black/white" issue when it comes to life after death. It is preached that one only goes to heaven if one believes in Jesus Christ & is converted.
So what would u do??????.... if a loved one is dying & you hate to see him/her suffer for eternity (the other option for heaven) -as is purported by yr religion.
So are the evangelical christians just being pushy retailers hoping to "sell their products" or due to true kind-hearted intention? AND does this "good intention" justify their pushiness?
heh heh... no need to qualify la... i fully understand where they are coming from when they push and i truely appreciate their good intentions. my problem is that (in the case of my sister), she was pushing to the point where my dad literally cries (not only call out loud, but really really cry!) for help and even then, she still push... that i cannot accept.
and it is this aspect that i think the evangelical christians have gone past their ethical limits and totally messed people up.
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