May 30, 2009

This is going to be a sensitive post about Christianity / Just expressing my opinions so if you arent comfortable reading it, close the window now/ And be warned that since I got a stupid virus in my computer, I am unable to use the “ENTER” key and some punctuation so this whole post is going to flow continuously like this/ Today I took a cab (nothing unusual) but was unfortunately reminded of how narrow minded some Christians can be/ The driver was listening to FM 958 and the Chinese DJ “Di Cong” was making some commentary about the local sport scene, I found his arguments very sound and passed a casual remark to the driver that “Di Cong” is indeed one of the few knowledgeable DJs around / The driver told me proudly “He is Christian”, then continued by saying that many of our local celebrities are Christians/ The immediate response in my head was “SO?” Does Christianity make you a celebrity or does it enhance your IQ? / I kept quiet but he seemed to have found his calling and proceeded to remark on how wonderful it is that there are lesser and lesser people burning incense in the month of the Hungry Ghost Festival after which he ended this observation with a smirk “Hah!” / He also mentioned that there are less Buddhists now because the churches have recently added “Hokkien” sermons and many people have thus began to visit the churches / He asked me if I was a Christian (somehow I knew that question would come) and I replied that I wasn’t, but most of my friends are either Christians or Catholics / The moment that came out of my mouth I regretted, because I knew instantly what he was going to say / True enough, he started telling me (with a little disdain) that Catholics are different from Christians/ The most ridiculous thing was his supporting reason, he actually said that the difference was that Catholics can eat and touch anything, especially those food which have been used to worship the Gods of Buddhism and that Catholics are free to hold joss sticks / PUH-LEASE, even I know that that is not the logical explanation for the difference between Catholics and Christians/ What pissed me off the most was what he insinuated, as if Buddhist practices or even just the act of holding joss sticks is wrong / And I felt like telling him people burning paper money during Hungry Ghost Festival has nothing to do with Buddhism / That’s what I hate about Christians like him, their narrow mindedness and intolerance towards the religions of others is infuriating and ego-centric / I was reminded of my school days, when those persistent crusaders or evangelists would come up to me on the streets and force me to listen to how much Jesus cared for us / A polite “No, I am not interested” never worked on them/ I often had to return their courtesy by telling them the story of how Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree and achieved enlightenment / I wasn’t even a Buddhist and I could have well been telling them the story of how Newton sat under the apple tree and discovered the law of gravity if I merely wanted to fend them off / However I just wanted to be a little bit more irritating because I could not stand how ego-centric these people are, how they think their religion is the best and how they think everyone should be assimilated / The worst was when these people came up to me on the streets and told me that 1999 was going to be Judgement Day and that those who believed in God would go to Heaven while those who did not would perish in Hell / I said, “Let me go to hell because Heaven would certainly be crowded with the likes of people like you” / Seriously, I have nothing against Christianity the religion / I just hate these people who are so institutionalised and think they know what is the best for everyone / To those Christians who cannot even have the graciousness and decency to show tolerance to the religion of others, I see no need to be cordial / I respect Christians as long as they do not try to pass those remarks which make them no different from Nazis / You have your religion, I have mine, of even if I have none, it is not your business to try and get me one/ If you read until here, I applaud you for your curiosity and persistence because this flowing entry must have pained your eyes LOL / As an ending note, you can read about someone’s departure from the religion here