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.