Update: A self-professed problogger described Good Friday as 'nonsense' today, classifying it as the celebration of a half-naked man swinging from a cross. I'm mentioning this because it's interesting that this same person claims to be religious and wants people to learn about the wonder that is his religion Islam, and clearly tries to influence readers that his version of 'The Way of Life' is the right one (liberals can go to hell, by his definition). He calls himself religious and yet has no qualms over behaving like a narrow-minded bigot.

But to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, tell me this. Even if you find the idea of worshiping Jesus appalling and an insult to your personal beliefs, do you find it Islamic to declare outright to a blogosphere with a good % of people in it being Christians themselves, that their one day dedication of Jesus's sacrifice on the cross is nonsense?

If this kind of behaviour is considered classic and correct Islamic, than I have to fear for the world, and for once agree with the stereotyped opinion that Islam evokes terror. Pardon me.


I really wonder what God actually thinks of all this ridiculous bickering over who He loves most. So strange that the most spiritual and religious bunch of His children are behaving like a bunch of delinquent prodigal children who're wallowing in our sadly earth-bound state. We the ones who proudly walk around with banners and labels of 'religiousness' on our heads, chests, coercing the gullible into realizing that there is a God and life is very dangerous if we start living, ignorant of Him.

Interestingly, the ones who've chosen to disown God are seemingly less troubled and affected by all this bickering.

I hope I don't sound too mean and insensitive in this, but when the more conservative Muslims tell me about their God, they give me the impression that Allah is this super garang big guy there who is eager to make us do a lot of things just so that we can get closer to Him. While I personally feel that there's too many ritualistic demands of Muslims, all the efforts of bridging the gap to get to God ought to be respected and I do that. It's just that it gets quite annoying when once a new friend, Muslim, said, 'Eh are you living in with your boyfriend? Is he your only boyfriend? You all can live together and have sex, kan? Because your religion allows it right?'

I went, like, hello? Moral values do not necessarily have to co-relate with the quality of a religion, okay? And Islam is not the only religion that preaches for sexual morality, neither do other religions (or races for that matter) encourage promiscuity.

At the risk on stepping on more toes here, Christians can be pains in the asses too. But first let me say that I'm attracted to Christ because He represents God as a super loving God who loves me no matter what (and me, like any normal human being, craves love).

Unfortunately I'm quite repelled by Christians, a lot of them actually. Then again, I suppose when a religion represents itself as loving, there'll the possessive ones who'll start telling you, 'Oh you wanna be loved by God izzit? Sorry lah, unless you are not gay, pay your 10% tithes a month, sudah kena drenched by water, and destroy all the dragon statues in your house, Daddy up there is not going to love you very much. He will throw you out of the house if you so much as so think of sex, btw.'

In Christendom there's a lot of very kay-poh people who're all far too interested in how you walk your Christian walk. It is irritating because while preaching relationship with God to be a personal one, we're all so eager to help each other qualify the intensity of this personal relationship.

Buddhists in Malaysia, aren't really Buddhists. Or at least, when you mix what is in essence an atheistic teaching with superstitious practices, you get something that's quite difficult to define. Many folk-religionists I know are a strange lot, because they're version of God is rooted in modern-day materialistic tendencies. 'If you burn enough paper gold coins, God will be very happy with you. For Pai-Tee-Kong, for example, you can never burn lesser gold than you prepared for last year. You really don't want to make God angry and unhappy.'

Pardon me but it sounds more like bribing some heavenly kingdom God to take care of you. I suppose it's probably a very M'sian culture, with money, anything can. Even making God happy can be done by paying money. Oh and it seems to be that when God is happy, you will get more money. Religious piety is represented by the exterior blessings God provides, if you strike lottery, for instance, God has cast His favour upon you. Fall sick, or get into an accident, for example, and the rationale is probably that you displeased the Gods.

I'm sorry if I'm sounding a tad bitter, and supremely insensitive here, but sometimes, I really really really really wonder what the Big Guy up there really thinks.

And because I just so happen to believe in the Christ-led version of loving God, I'm thinking he lets us all play around in this round big playground of His, and He just watches us while we make our mistakes, and even hurt (or kill) each other in the process.

I suppose God just trusts in the good side of men, the side that's really keen to return to Him. And so He'll just patiently wait till His prodigal children decide to return to Him. Or when things get out of hand, I think He just slaps us on our cheeks and in difficult situations, force-brings us back to His realms.

It's just that, I wish that those strange blogs set up by the over-zealous Muslims don't sound so intimidating, and don't make me feel so scared and fearful about my personal freedom of choices in this country. I am worried actually, because there seems to be so many of those these days.

is your church like this?Having said all that, I'll just mention here that it is my personal belief that apostasy (out of any religion) is a personal struggle. It's just so disheartening that in this country, apostates have gone into such unwarranted limelight. Struggles for religious maruah not withstanding, why can't God be upheld by a lot of praising and worshiping, and why should one religion's 'face-value' be considered threatened just because some people are contemplating to leave the sect. Why must institutional religious success be quantified by numbers? Is 'more' necessarily better? Why all the importance placed on the rights and wrongs, and why must winning the argument always end in the cliché 'We'll see who ends up in Heaven'?

Why is there a need to win the argument anyway?