Comments on: That’s odd

By: bonnie2405

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:10:56 +0000

then perhaps going through a trial would be good way, instead of rampant beating and killing Ahmadiyah people.
what I don’t understand, Ahmaddiyah already there in Java at least for very long time. Why suddenly now with all violent action toward them?

By: sufehmi

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 02:19:20 +0000

Another perspective here on Ahmadiyya – we’re actually fine with them, as long as they name their religion something else.

Yes, Ahmadiyya is fundamentally different than Islam. So it’s misleading to say that it’s Islam.

So just say that they’re Ahmadiyya, and there’d be no problem. And basically this is what MUI said too, they’re just stating that Ahmadiyya is Ahmadiyya. Not Islam.

But they insisted on hijacking Islam.

Imagine if we, muslim, named our religion The True Christian
I wouldn’t be surprised if people are suddenly angry with us, since we’re hijacking their religion.

I really hope that this brouhaha can be solved amicably. But so far their leaders are playing a slick game. He’s playing a nice kid with the media, while still continuing on their hijacking mission.

As long as they’re insisting on doing this, they’d continue to offend the masses. Which, in Indonesia, can be very violent & emotional

But that’s what the media love isn’t it ? It will sell the papers more.
You gotta love this media circus thingy.

By: Melting Pot of Religion: Are We There Yet? « andie summerkiss

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:29:52 +0000

[...] There Yet? Published January 16, 2008 daily stuff Tags: blog 365, religion, thoughts Pelopor wrote an interesting post on religious beliefs and practices, which raised a couple of issues [...]

By: Bonnie2405

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:27:33 +0000

@zushi: hehehe if yor god is the money..count me in :p
@andie: love your stages of inter-religious interaction learning from my positive hubbie…i think positively that indonesia still have time to push to second and third stage of interaction. I remembered my childhood in Maluku, that’s the only place where I celebrated Idul Filtri and Christmas at their full glory! Magnificent. And now it won’t be restored to the way it used to be. As much as there’s another cause to the war in Maluku from social and politic perspective, still it is a very saddening to see great pela culture gone within a blink of the eye. That’s should be a good lesson for all of us to go for understanding and respect. So we are not going to have the second maluku, or second poso, or any other second on the name of Religion. Oh…by the way…anybody know what is actually the main objective to have Department of Religion ????

By: Andie Summerkiss

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:15:22 +0000

Okay. I am making a LOT of grammatical error. Apologies to all readers. My eyes were watering, but there were no excuse for the mistakes ….

“They are using the worst possible words”

“The fact that our religion or belief is not the only one existed”

“Objective view”

“Which act as melting pots for different faith and religions”

By: Andie Summerkiss

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:10:37 +0000

Months ago, I came across an open forum on Yahoo where people were sending hate messages about religion. Whose religion is stronger, whose the more ridiculous. I was shocked and scared to my very core. No wonder these people are killing each other! They are using the worse possible languages to each other.

There are three points to be stressed according to you. Tolerance, understand and respect.

Tolerance is the easiest, we just need to live with the fact that our religion or believe is not the only one existed.

Understanding is more of a technical term in my point of view. To gain deeper understanding on roots of different faiths and religions not only testing the intellectual nature of somebody, but definitely requires logic and unconditional-unbiased-straightly objective views.

Respect is to do both things above together. Harder than it sounds, but it is the ultimate goal for all countries which is a melting pot of different faith and religions. Indonesia, sadly to say, is still struggling at step one – tolerance.

By: Pelopor

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 21:23:43 +0000

Proper education is something any country can use. And I suppose Indonesia is no exception. For one thing, in the Netherlands we are in desperate need of some good education about our colonial past, the Age of Enlightenment/Reason and philosophy.

I guess it must have been late, both me and me spouse didn’t see anything wrong hehehe, spelling or otherwise

By: Sushihunt

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 20:58:06 +0000

In Indonesia people often exchange the meaning of ‘faith/beliefs’ and ‘religion’ while they are actually two different things. I think one of the reasons of this kind of mixed up is because: in our KTP (id card), religious identity must be included. So if in someone’s KTP the religious affiliation is Islam, then he/she is straight away stamped as a believer. While it’s almost always not true. Thus the nickname: Islam KTP… hehehe..

I think we can bring this into a broader context that Indonesians badly need proper education in respecting other people’s beliefs/faith (not only in respecting other people’s religion). I also think that government shouldn’t interfere with people’s beliefs. People should be given the freedom to choose what they believe (and this doesn’t necessarily mean they have to choose a religion, because they can choose to become agnostics or atheists), as long as it didn’t cause a universally condemned crime (such as that mass suicide you wrote above). Lastly, I think mass preaching (like on TV) on religion should be avoided and people should try to find their own ways without interference from anybody.

So, if I start a sect that believes that money is God, will that be wrong?

ps: Pelopor, were you tired when writing this? Plenty of spelling mistakes laaah