In yesterday afternoon tea break time, I have a very interesting conversation at work about Muslim. I have a Chinese (myself), a white guy (Mark) and an Indian (Ron) in the chat, representing pretty much the three main culture view in the world except the Muslim’s. The nature of Muslim has always been a question roaming in my head. Is Muslim a peaceful religion as they claim or are they fundamentally evil? India has many Muslim, Ron has a lot more experience working and living with Muslim than us. Mark is a typical white Christian with a liberal mind. He reads quite a lot in the culture conflict issues. Together with my usual curious out of the box ideas and interest in religion issues, we have come to some very interesting insight in the discussion.
We are debating whether Muslim is a religion of violence and intolerance. It is fair for a religion trying to convert other people. Using Indian as an example, when British came to India, they built schools, ran hospitals, trying to lure in the believers. When the Muslim king ruled India, they simply put a knife on your neck and forced you to convert. We concludes that poverty is major cause of terrorist, but the Muslim believe definitely fueled the attacks. Is it much more easy to recruit terrorists if they believe violence act leads to heaven and there are 72 virgins waiting there. It is quite interesting to explain why Muslim is violence though. Muslim is a younger religion than Christianity. Today’s Muslim is very similar to the Church in middle age. Maybe Muslim is just on the nature evolution religion, experience the stage of violence and rebellious before maturing to be religion of love an peace like Christianity. If Muslim really is the biggest thread to mankind after Nazism and Communism, none of us can provide any satisfying solution.
One thing that we all come to conclusion unanimously is the loud speakers of the mosque is very very annoying. They bust prayer songs in high volume before dawn waking up everyone who is trying to get a good sleep. I guess the Mosque right outside of the guest house provide sufficient evidence to rule Muslim is a evil, if not stupid, religion. By definition, anyone who disturbs my sleep deem to be evil.
Hey, hope you could get ear-plucks from nearby pharmacy or something…
It is difficult for foreigners to ‘blend in’ the religious part…
I met with Muslims and Sikhs who are friends/ clients. They are nice and normal people!
I have done some travelling and many of my friends are Muslims (not that it matters to me what their religions are). There are always the hawks and the doves within a society, a religion, and/or an institution (e.g. country, church/mosque, government). It does not make sense to paint everything and everyone within each group with a broad-brush. I am always surprised by ppl who draw conclusions based on hear-say (including those so-called news “stories”).
I have many Muslims friends and I even lived with a Muslim for a few months. There are nice Muslim and there are not so nice ones. My rule of thumb to distinguish between the two is whether they drink beer. The rule sounds silly at first but actually make sense. The Quran literally prohibit drinking of beer, which we all know is stupid. If a Muslim follow the Quran word by word, then he is a die-hard Muslim and his belief is dangerous to the society. If a Muslim drinks beer, then he is a liberal Muslim and his belief is just like any follower of other religions.
Here are some supplementary info to my last comments:
“… 『群眾的眼睛(未必)是雪亮的!』,媒體報導可能是誠實客觀,片面主觀,甚至惡意扭曲事實。我們會否是被牽著鼻子走的人?還是投崖的旅鼠?我們需要『借一雙慧眼』,做一個『有理智和獨立思考能力』的讀者。…”
Source: 與傳播媒體打交道 (四):【孫子兵法】『地略篇』 / Managing Mass Media (4): Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War: Nine Theatres”
website: http://lotusandcedar.blogspot.com/2008/04/managing-mass-media-4-sun-tzus-art-of.html
>> … beer drinking Muslims
Haha!! It reminds me of meat-eating monks in HK.
Throughout history, there are fundamentalists and extremists from all walks of life, not just any one religious group. I think in a democratic society, it is important to promote mutual acceptance and dialogues, as opposed to exclusion and elimination through violence. Within the context of our society here in Canada, I do believe in public security and law-abiding measures to protect citizens against terrorism of any kind, be they religious- or political-driven.