Fearing the Unknown

Most people believe that Halloween has a pagan roots. Halloween was Christianized only after Europe embraced Christianity.

To me Halloween is just a fancy costume party with sugary treats as the main course and can be a waste of a time. It’s fun for children and sometimes grow-ups. Like all festivals/celebrations, it has been extremely commercialized and can also be very heavy on your wallet.

Sometimes ago, I remember a few friends wanting to bring their children to my house for Halloween. Although we don’t really celebrate the Halloween at our home but you can’t really say ‘No’ to your friends’ children whose only mission in life is to grab and hoard as many candies as possible on the 31st of October. Also back then, I didn’t recall even a single downside of opening the door to the trick-a-treating crowd.

I opened the door on Halloween to my friends’ children. They were very happy and appreciative and we had a lovely time in my yard socializing – talking about mundane everyday stuff (nothing demonic in any way, shape or form).

All the noises and commotions in front of my house were attracting some folks in the neighborhood. Suddenly, a group of kids arrived, followed by another group of kids..and then another…it looked like Zombie apocalypse!

The kids went away with my fancy chocolates unfortunately :( Like I said, I wasn’t prepared for Halloween and the only candies we had were the fancy chocolaty type that we keep for ourselves mostly.

If you don’t live in a country that has a ‘culture’ of celebrating the Halloween then you are probably not sure why folks are dressing silly…you could also wonder if this ‘festival’ is just another form of imperialism undercover. Some of you may even wonder if you can join in all the fun …

I’m reading this news that the Muslims in some countries perceive Halloween as a threat.

A fatwa from Malaysia’s religious affairs ministry telling Muslims there they cannot celebrate Halloween is not the only troubling development to have hit the Southeast Asian country recently.

As The Wall Street Journal’s James Hookway writes, a Muslim religious edict denouncing Halloween parties in Malaysia might not seem like a significant move. Plenty of Christian groups also view the commerce and frivolity that accompany the celebration as vaguely pagan and a little bit off-color.

Fearing of the unknown? Or Islamic supremacy?

“Malay supremacy was the old school. People like (Isma president) Abdullah Zaik and others like him belong to the new school, and that’s Islamist supremacy,” professor James Chin of Monash University was quoted as saying. “It’s potentially more volatile.”

I personally don’t prefer someone else making decision about my belief. But seem like many don’t have that problem. Am I a rebel to think that only a brain dead religion needs gullible followers and yes-man type?


References
[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/halloween-draws-muslim-ire-in-malaysia-as-tensions-simmer-1414660190

[2] http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/halloween-ban-an-attempt-to-uphold-malay-supremacy-says-report

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

Religious Guilt

Do you sometimes feel that the God is angry at you/your buddies/your family/community/etc because of some perceived shortcomings?

In Liberia, the National Christian Ebola Task Force, a group of different Christian denominations, began three days of prayer and dawn-to-dusk fasting on Wednesday to seek salvation from the "curse" of the epidemic, which has killed 2,705 people and infected 4,665 more in the West African country.

"Ebola is a virus from the devil. It's killing us because we have turned our back to God," said Reverend David G. Benitoe of the Task Force. "We have traded the worship of God with the worship of demons and witchcraft, and evil stuff is now happening in this country."

The most common theme in organized religion (like Islam and Christianity) is that God created every living beings; including the devil and also viruses.

But according to this Reverend, the Devil as well as the God are both in the business of creating evil entities to punish human being (God creating the devil and in return the devil creating the Ebola virus).


Religious guilt is a very powerful weapon that the clerics use often to blackmail the folks.

The easiest way to avoid this ‘guilt syndrome’ is to first not even believe in such nonsense. You can never be responsible for what is beyond your knowledge or control.

And if Ebola is indeed caused by your irreligiosity then why the babies/toddlers who are mostly sinless are also being punished?

And if you are absolutely certain that you are indeed being punished for the sins of others then why do you think God is being very selective here? Punishing some sinful folks and leaving many other sinful folks to prosper.

Bottom line is no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Selling Christianity as a religion of Science?

Recently the Pope proclaimed that God is not a magician with a magic wand. He meant to say that the creation is a scientific process and there’s no need to believe in a fairy tale beginning to the universe.

I guess the pope realized that it’s no longer possible to attract folks to Christianity by lies.

I guess I’m back to blogging

I was away briefly, but now the weather is turning winterish, so my outdoor activities are limited.

I’ve been making notes about a few things I wish to blog in the future. I’m also reading news, picking up interesting stories about human, reconnecting ideas of the past with the future, analyzing the flaws in arguments and re-thinking/entertaining the possibilities that maybe everything we know about religions is probably false.