Religious Snob

 I copied this article from my blog here. I wrote this 18 years ago and now I wonder why I posted it in that blog, not here. ha ha ... 

pic from this site

This is one topic that has been discussed "hotly" for several weeks in one mailing list I join.
Religious snob ...

I must admit that I used to be included in such a "community" because I was indoctrinated like that--that Islam is the only right religion; that embracing Islam will make a group of people better than the rest so that they are the only people who will go to heaven while the rest go go hell, etc.

I didn't use my common sense at that time because of my very young age and also the strong indoctrination given by people I must respect--parents and teachers.

After I used my common sense, and I consider myself to be "awakened" from my long sleep, I found those religious snob very ridiculous.

Naively I thought my "awakening" was closely related to my advancing age.

However, when reading that those joining the mailing list I mentioned above are about the same age as I am, even older, and still they are not "awakened" yet, still consider themselves as the most enlightened, and then underestimate other people who view things from contradictory perspective, I become very sad; even sometimes I feel so broken-hearted. 

Recently a workmate and I have had discussed this kind of thing: what will happen to Indonesia when the people easily judge other people bad only because of the different religion and then they impose their being majority to force other people to agree with their opinion--let's say to apply the Sharia regulations (based on Islamic regulation); while our founding fathers like Soekarno and Hatta (the first president and the first vice president) already formulated Indonesia as a country based on PANCASILA (five principles) that accommodate different religions and encouraged the conducive situation among different religions. Isn't that much lovelier to understand other people? So that they understand us?

Age really doesn't guarantee that someone is wise.

 

July 4, 2006