Proselytisation

While chit chatting with a friend last week, he told me that his 2 children (the son in Secondary 1, the daughter in Primary 5) have recently expressed enthusiasm for picking up Christianity as their religion. As my friend is a Buddhist, he is a bit concerned by this. He believes that his children have been influenced by their friends in school. It is not hard to imagine this happening in Singapore, as our schools are teaching in English, and Christianity is the dominant faith among English/Western societies. Children like to read English story books, and there are many Christian story books out there in the market promoting the religion. And children can be easily persuaded.

Personally, I do not have any problem with people taking up any religion of their choosing. If you like the tenets of a particular religion, and decide to commit to it, that's fine with me. However, I do draw a line if you then go about hounding other people into converting to your religion or into joining your religious group. I hate aggressive in-your-face proselytising, which is something that only the Christians practise.

For instance, in Buddhism, the Buddhist practitioners will simply give you the precepts and teachings of Buddhism, and let you read and study about the religion on your own time. You must choose to accept Buddhist teachings yourself (as Buddhism is all about personal effort. There is no deity who will grant you your wishes or forgive you for your sins). You do not see Buddhists accosting people on the road and haranguing them to convert them to Buddhism.

But this is completely different with Christianity. It is one of the tenets of Evangelical Christianity that to be a good Christian, you must spread the religion to non-Christians and convert them to the Christian faith. That is why the "proselytisation brigade" is almost exclusively comprised of Evangelical Christians. And by employing good marketing techniques, they are also very successful.

If you study the doctrines of Christianity, you will probably have no quibbles with the ethical aspects of the religion to do good and to do no evil. Philosophically speaking, the ethics and moral aspects of all religions, Christianity included, are simply elaborations of the golden rule:

Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.

If everyone follows the golden rule, we will all be living in a society filled with peace and harmony, despite our differences in race, language, or religion.

It is the superstitious aspects of Christianity that I have trouble with. And boy, are there lots of myths and superstitious beliefs in Christianity. Unfortunately, fundamentalist Christians are very aggressive in promoting their myths and superstitions as SCIENTIFIC and HISTORICAL FACTS. In fact, any criticism of the Christian Bible is treated by believers as a denigration and attack on their personal well being. The problem is that these believers do not feel the same way when they denigrate and attack the religion/belief systems of the non-Christians during their conversion exercises! What hypocrisy!

Examples of Christian mythology treated as SCIENTIFIC/HISTORICAL FACTS:

- That some deity created ADAM and EVE to lord it over the animals (reality: humans are animals too. Humans are really evolved apes).

- The concept of ORIGINAL SIN by humans eating from the Tree of Knowledge (reality: everything in Genesis is a fable and not history)

- The concept of JESUS being born of a virgin (reality: there is no such thing as a virgin birth in humans. Although parthenogenesis is technically possible, the offspring would be a female, and will never be a male. This is because a woman only possesses the X-chromosome. A man is required to supply the Y-chromosome for the X-Y chromosome pair to make baby boys. Thus, female virgins - should they exist - would only be able to give birth to daughters and never to sons. The reality is that Mary was never a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus).

- The concept that a loving deity must have someone DIE for the SINS of humans so that humans can be SAVED. What sins can a baby have? Besides, human parents usually exhibit unconditional love for their children - and will forgive their children transgressions when their children do wrong. Why can't this deity be like human parents and just forgive without exacting the penalty of DEATH by crucifixion for Jesus, or subject non-believers to everlasting burning in Hell?

- The concept that only believers will be saved, and non-believers will be doomed to eternal and everlasting punishment by burning in Hell forever and ever. (Reality: there are about 2 billion Christians, and more than 4 billion non-Christians, in the world. If the Christian theology is correct, then the majority of humans have been doomed by this deity to burn in Hell forever because they did not accept Jesus Christ as their saviour. What kind of deity is this that will submit the majority of humans to eternal punishment, and only allow a select group to be saved?)

- The concept that the god of the bible is an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent god. (Reality: if you read the bible, the god described in it is anything but omnipotent, omniscient, or benevolent!)

Indeed, the philosopher Epicurus said it best:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is not benevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?

The existence of suffering (also referred as the problem of evil) is the best evidence on why there is no such thing as gods - at least not the type which answer our prayers or interfere with our lives to fulfil some divine plan.

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Science has helped us to learn more about ourselves and the universe, and has helped demote many such religious beliefs into the realms of superstitions and myths. However, when children are not taught the facts, or are not nurtured from young to do critical thinking, they can fall prey to treating such myths as facts.

Richard Dawkins wrote a very good essay in his book The Devil's Chaplain titled Good and Bad Reasons For Believing. If your children are thinking of converting to any religion, it might be helpful to ask them to read Richard Dawkins essay, which can be found here:

http://www.siliconglen.com/news/2009/01/richard-dawkins-letter-to-his-ten-year.html

Children should also be told that it is perfectly fine to not believe in the concept of god or gods. In fact, most rational people, after examining all the available evidence, always come to the conclusion that there is probably no such thing as gods, and do not need to believe in such things. Indeed, humans are already good without god. There is no need to postulate the hypothesis that gods exist to explain the goodness in people.

The list of atheists include some very famous and renowned people. I am proud to associate with and consider myself part of this group:

Let's celebrate reason!