Sim Kwang Yang
I was reminded of what John Rawls wrote in his book entitled ‘A Theory of Justice’ in 1971.
Rawls invented the theoretical position behind the original ‘veil of ignorance’.
In short, to consider the morality of any action, we must assume that we do not know how the position we take is going to further our self-interest or not. Then we can prepare for a moral standpoint.
This is exactly the opposite of how we take a moral stand in our daily lives. In actual practice, we always make our decisions based on how our stand is going to affect our self-interest.
In matters of religious debate, we always assume that the God we believe in is the ultimate, the one true God and nothing else.
Ultimate truth
In religious debate, out of our religious convictions, we always assume that our God is the only saviour, and that he is only ultimate truth, according to the revelations of our prophets and according to the records in our particular Holy Book.
To admit that there are Gods beside our own God is tantamount to sacrilege.
The teaching of the Holy Book is contradictory to our actual experience. For in our daily lives, we have many religions claiming to have exclusive access to the only true God.
That is the experience of our multi-racial world. If we cannot handle this contradiction properly, we can subject ourselves to endless strive and even bloodshed.
In a sense, in a multi-religious society like Malaysia, the highest social virtue that can be practised by the member of any religious faith is endless tolerance, without claiming to be in possession of the only absolute truth there is in the universe.
This is the key toward religious toleration as a cornerstone or interracial harmony in our country.
It will require various peoples living in our varied and multi-racial society to allow various populations to enjoy their freedom and religion, while denying nobody their right to the absolute truth.
This will mean that, while I must believe in my own God as the only destiny in my life, I do not negate other people’s rights to their own belief in what the ultimate reality is.
Although I have no doubt about the truth of my God, I will not deny other people their different pursuit of the same truth.
I have to accept the trans-religious proposition that the road to absolute truth has many turns and is a long and winding one and that the ultimate truth has not been revealed in all its entirety.
We have to develop as a habit of existence, our readiness to accept other religious beliefs and not see the differences in opinion as a personal affront.
National religion
Islam is our national religion which is the official religion of our country. I have no problem with that, and I have learnt to understand the greatness of Islam, although I have problem understanding the difference between Shia, Sunni, Safee and Wahabi.
All I understand is Islam is not a single entity but it is a culmination of many faiths, all bearing the same dogma on the faith to the one true God.
My little understanding of Christianity is even more confusing what with so many Christian sects in existence. But I understand their common belief in Jesus Christ as the one true saviour.
I have problems understanding the teaching of Buddhism, their writing on the eternal cycle of life, and what it means to achieve Nirvana.
Then there are the numerous other minor religious belief systems that exist in Sarawak and Sabah.
I respect all religions, because all thing religious has something to do with the absolute divine, something completely whole and eternal.
Though I do not belong to any organised religion, I accept with the fullness of my heart there is something completely sacred in the world, though I do not know what it is.
I look at all human beings as equal citizens of our human society, whose religious right must be respected by all. We all have a share in the same God, just as we share in the same moon and the same sun.
May God bless us all.
SIM KWANG YANG was member of parliament for Bandar Kuching, Sarawak from 1982 to 1995. He can be reached at sky8hornbill@gmail.com. All comments are welcomed.
Hornbill Unleashed 
Why is our country turning into something not in accord; a conflict of sort, race and religion issues. I thought 1Malaysia is to reinforce or rein in all the turbulences we face day in and day out into harmony. It is so sad to see so many vested parties and interests skimming on these issues further to implode so much deception, hatred and division among malaysian at large. Who is going to gain, and how are we going to explain to our kids these days when ask by them. What kind of society will be it after we are gone for the generations to come. Please stop it now before it is too late, wise up all parties concern, evil in us is taking roots……….so God is Love. Please start to love everyone, and life is too short.
Comment by Friends — May 25, 2011 @ 3:20 PM |
No. UMNO and Utusan are only part of the problem.
The Home Ministry and the PM Office are the source of all this national nausea. They send you ROS, Consumer Affairs Dept., JAKIM and PDRM. Utusan is a lot of rubbish that no one will even use as grocery wrapper for free, let alone parting with RM2.00. Home Ministry and PM’s Office are like God demeaned.
God being sublime should be most forgiving and merciful, reinvigorating and enriching. Can you help it if you’re trapped by your human body? Like some itching palms?
Your link to God is your brain that sends tiny electrical signals to your heart and face muscles to make you ache or laugh and be overjoyed. Of course you need to wax out your ears and check your glasses now and then. The greater OS then unifies millions of signals, filter out only those important ones, to harmonise your cultured predisposition and outlook i.e. the system you paid for in taxes to finance society and government. If you’re sick the response is different. It does matter that we have such a thing as the Home Ministry which is your culture of thinking, living and reacting. Of course when you react opposite to the God, Home Ministry and PM’s Office, there will be disunity. So what do we do? Isn’t it obvious? Use your vote!
There are many ways of “looking at God”. There was an old Hindu fable of a wise old man and a small boy with a handful of salt at the seaside. Old man asked the boy what happened to salt thrown into the sea. He told the boy it was not lost after the boy had sprinkled it into the salty waters.
God, from what can be made of the wise old Hindu is everything… the Universe. All the rules are already there. The positive and negative electrical elements give power to the system. Chlorophyll gets made from the sun so animals like us can eat and survive to reignite other elements building a human culture system that attempts to harmonize the reinforcing energy and phenomena. All the rules are there. You need to dig them up.
How do you know? Well, the lump of thing in your head tells you. But where is ‘you’ and where is ‘that lump of thing’? Who knows?
Is this against Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and the TV Evangelism? Should it be? It’s how we reallocate national resources to two fundamental things among others – health and education and managing them and other things sensibly. It gets pretty rough when people confuse you from doing the honest things you need to do and your attempt to try add to the total reality in a manner even against Home Affairs and PM’s Dept.
What is not right is the Home Affairs Ministry and the PM’s Department. Something urges you to restore balance and that is … to use your vote.
So help you, God! Good is in you! 😉
Comment by NameWE — May 23, 2011 @ 12:43 PM |
Umno is so desperate now that it has to use Utusan’s seditious articles to shore up its malay rural support.
Comment by Birney — May 23, 2011 @ 10:15 AM |