I love a good discourse. I love talking to people; understanding their point of views, knowing what they know and learning things I don’t know. This is why I have friends who are deeply religious, I have friends who are liberal, who are atheists, who are Wiccan, who are pagan, who are spiritual but not pious, and some of my friends are even downright eccentrics by “normal” standard. But what I hate is when people say, “You’re not of so screw you. You don’t know anything. You have no right to say anything in this.” Such arrogance! How do we know that person doesn’t know a thing just because he or she is of different belief/religion from us? How do we know that that person doesn’t spend his or her time reading, understanding and seeking knowledge? I have 3 friends who studied comparative religion and they’re PhDs in it. But all 3 of them did not convert to any of the religions they’ve studied. There are times, they shared with me things about Islam that I don’t know about. Do I have the right to ask them to convert just because they know more than me about my faith/religion/belief? No. Absolutely not. Being born into a belief/religion/faith doesn’t give you autonomous right to dictate what other people should think or say or be. In my experience, many people who are of different belief/religion/faith from me are very enlightened, and they make me see things differently, see things the way I never thought of before. Did I think they have an “agenda” to convert me? Did I feel in any way they’re out to spread their religion onto me? No. Not even once. Okay, maybe they do have that intention, who knows. But if I don’t allow them to influence me, they can’t convert or change my belief system no matter how hard they try. Words are powerful, but they only have effect as much as I allow them to on me. It should be our own responsibilities to seek knowledge until our dying day. And in this era, you don’t have to go class to learn. Scholars and clerics can be reached via WhatsApp, they have YouTube video channels, they have Facebook page, they have official websites. Just because a person doesn’t take photo of themselves going to classes doesn’t mean they’re not learning. The cure for ignorance is education. Period. If you shut out the people who want to understand just because you think they don’t know your belief/religion/faith, then to me, you’re the one who doesn’t know anything.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:27:59 +0000