It was my aim to get 1 million visits to my blog and this is
already achieved. So I would sort of take a more passive approach to blog
writing, after all; there are still many things to do in life than writing
blogs.
I have many friends both in the East and the West. The
westerners are more open in expressing their thoughts about spiritual matters
in general while people in the East take a more emotional approach…
In my final years of my undergraduate study, there was an
optional lecture known as ‘engineers in society’ that encouraged the students
to explore how we think and how engineering can help to change our society.
Being an optional lecture, as expected; the attendance was always pretty low. I
myself wasn’t very hardworking one but I did drop into the lecture occasionally
to get myself exposed.
Amongst many topics, there was a topic about spiritual
matters and social development. The spiritual matters in this context refers to
‘religion and occult matters’.
Before the lecture started, the professor asked one of the
participants: “What do you think about religion?”
The person shrugged and the professor replied: “Is it a fact
that you do not know; or you have no idea at all?”
Then the most undesirable matter happened to me. The
professor noticed I was the only ‘outstanding’ (Chinese) in the lecture
theatre, he then pointed to me and asked:
“And what do you think?”
I struggled to squeeze a reasonable answer from my otherwise
brain and somehow the words blurred out:
“Religion is a tool
that almost destroyed human civilization throughout the history. It behaves as
if yeast which causes bread to ferment but in the process, it is killed by its
own action at the end.”
The professor smiled
and asked me to elaborate more. And below is what I have said:
“If we look into the
history of our civilizations, east and west; rulers made use of religious excuses
to invade other countries. Many Chinese empires fell due to the emperors were
too engrossed into religious matters. Too often than not, large amount of money
and labours were deployed to build temples instead of strengthening the internal
military powers and economic developments. When money was not enough, the
emperors would impose taxes onto their subjects until lives were so difficult
that people revolted against the emperor and brought down the empires. Also, by
hiding under the blanket of religions; Chinese emperors were more eager to
achieve Buddhahood than defending foreign invasive forces.
The old Tibet was
ruled by politics and religions. Within Tibetan Buddhism, religious
persecutions amongst various sects were a norm. Most notably was the
persecution of Gelupa onto Jonangpa although both sects practise Kalachakra
Tantra. Tantric rituals were touted to be very powerful and the torma (ritual
cakes) once thrown out were much more powerful than an atomic bomb. In actual
fact, the so-called most powerful fire ritual failed to halt the Chinese army
from entering Tibet…
In Old China and Tibet,
the religions they follow became toxins that caused their downfall.
Today, religious
activities became a big business. In Asian countries: Taiwan, Thailand,
Singapore and Malaysia etc. People burns down billion dollars of incense and
joss papers. Expensive temples were built and added to that were the attached
maintenance costs. Religious schools cost another few billions of dollars
together with religious publishing, food supply chains, financial services etc.
All in all, there are a lot of money involved. Of course, with those major cash
activities around; a lot of effort and money are also spent to govern and
supervise such economic activities…
At the end of the day,
people of various religions get more segregated due to individual doctrines and
I would not be surprised that unrest may occur sometime in future when the
resources are getting less. At this moment, even people of the same religious
group would fight for those limited power and resources…”
Personally speaking, people are afraid of unknown and hence
give forth to religious and spiritual matters. It is good to invest in after
death matters; but the current wellbeing is still our main priority.
This is the reason I started MagicSEA blog. And this post
serves as the prelude of my blogs.
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