Friday, May 01, 2009
holy goat
the other day during a meeting a couple of us went out to do our Zohor prayers. and while leaving the room one of my friends made a comment "but we all pray to the same god, right?" what he meant was why all these different ways of worshipping the same god? you go and do your five times daily prayers in the mosque, you go to temple and you go to church and so on. and his question was a very valid one. there were indonesians, a colombian, a couple of vietnamese, a couple of thais a filipino, an australian , a couple of chinese malaysians and a couple of malay muslims in the meeting. and we all have diferent religions and beliefs.
one of the best features of our corporate culture is the high respect for diversity and so everybody has the freedom to do and observe his religious practise and culture no matter how outlandish or strange it may seem to the others. but this question of worships and religion always bug me. why all these fights even about what to call god? and that is just for a start. is it any big deal if christians also want to call their god Allah? why don't hindus add jesus as another one of their numerous gods? what if they do? and so on. and all these unfortunate and sad fights all because of different ways of worshipping god. the recent 'scandal' of a hindu convert to Islam who wants to bring up his children into islamic faith whilst his ex wife who is still a hindu want them to remain hindu reminds us how explosive and sad things can turn into. no wonder in some culture when this kind of things happen they simply use guns to settle the matter. clean and easy. i can not imagine what i'll do if i'm faced with a similar situation as this indian couple.
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although the question "but we all pray to the same god, right?" wasn't addressed to any particular person i thought i shouldn't leave it unanswered and so I replied "oh no, we worship the same goat" and my recently turned very pious muslim collegue turned to me and wishpered under his breadth...'you be careful, that's blasphemy'. but i may not be far off the truth. different religions differ so much in how they view god(s) and how god wants us to be behave it is almost quite impossible to say that we are worshipping the same god. human intellectual wirings is such that we have this a priori belief that truth is one. you can not have two different sets of truth. all achievements of science depends on this fundamental fact. and that only means that when it comes to different religions , there can not be multiple truths...meaning that there's only one true religion.
but as we know it is not as straight forward as that. religions undergo the same darwinian evolution as much as living things. there is no one religion which is completely unique and arise or stands on it's own. independent of anything before it. all religions are influenced and based on it's predecessor. so in a sense they are one but updated in different ways. so why bother? you like apple, i like orange but they are all fruits right? but it's not as easy as that. even among apples there are varieties, i happen to like cox and you granny smith and so on. and we think those that eat rambutans are plain fuckers...and we start fighting. and we all forget about god, the compassionate and all that.... we might as well worship goats.
one of the best features of our corporate culture is the high respect for diversity and so everybody has the freedom to do and observe his religious practise and culture no matter how outlandish or strange it may seem to the others. but this question of worships and religion always bug me. why all these fights even about what to call god? and that is just for a start. is it any big deal if christians also want to call their god Allah? why don't hindus add jesus as another one of their numerous gods? what if they do? and so on. and all these unfortunate and sad fights all because of different ways of worshipping god. the recent 'scandal' of a hindu convert to Islam who wants to bring up his children into islamic faith whilst his ex wife who is still a hindu want them to remain hindu reminds us how explosive and sad things can turn into. no wonder in some culture when this kind of things happen they simply use guns to settle the matter. clean and easy. i can not imagine what i'll do if i'm faced with a similar situation as this indian couple.
*
although the question "but we all pray to the same god, right?" wasn't addressed to any particular person i thought i shouldn't leave it unanswered and so I replied "oh no, we worship the same goat" and my recently turned very pious muslim collegue turned to me and wishpered under his breadth...'you be careful, that's blasphemy'. but i may not be far off the truth. different religions differ so much in how they view god(s) and how god wants us to be behave it is almost quite impossible to say that we are worshipping the same god. human intellectual wirings is such that we have this a priori belief that truth is one. you can not have two different sets of truth. all achievements of science depends on this fundamental fact. and that only means that when it comes to different religions , there can not be multiple truths...meaning that there's only one true religion.
but as we know it is not as straight forward as that. religions undergo the same darwinian evolution as much as living things. there is no one religion which is completely unique and arise or stands on it's own. independent of anything before it. all religions are influenced and based on it's predecessor. so in a sense they are one but updated in different ways. so why bother? you like apple, i like orange but they are all fruits right? but it's not as easy as that. even among apples there are varieties, i happen to like cox and you granny smith and so on. and we think those that eat rambutans are plain fuckers...and we start fighting. and we all forget about god, the compassionate and all that.... we might as well worship goats.
