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Huh!? Images Our Society

Ugly evangelical Christians insult Buddhists and Muslims

Once again, Christian evangelists have abused Buddhists and Muslims, this time by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC):

Offensive poster from Campus Crusade for Christ

Offensive web page from Campus Crusade for Christ

The small text circled in red above reads:

“In a country where much of the population is M, much prayer and work is needed in this place. As our first team to be sent to this place, you will be reaching an unreached people group. This is a pioneer work where you will get to help start movement on their campuses! … …”

Please make a stand and tell the insensitive religious zealots that enough is enough. Check out and LIKE the Facebook page Say Yes to Religious Harmony.

It’s ok to discuss and compare religions but it’s a no-no to abuse others’ religion no matter how “well-intentioned” you are or how much you “love” them. How can you love someone when you don’t even respect the person in the first place?

Please stop offensive evangelism and unethical proselytism now.

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Our Society

Christian evangelists take advantage of the poverty, illiteracy and innocence of villagers in India

7 mins 22 secs into the video, Nabbi Ram Singh related his shocking observation:

“Once I was called to a village for some antenna work. When my two friends and I had finished their work, we passed a local church on our way to the car.

There were about 250 poor people waiting to go inside the church. 3 priests, in long white ropes, were ordering these people to step on pictures of different Hindu Gods, which they had placed on the steps of the church. This was to prove that they had renounced the Hindu Gods by converting into Christianity.

Later, it came to my knowledge, that they were also ordered to burn pictures of our Hindu Gods. My friends and I were very shocked, because if you stepped on pictures of Hindu Gods, it’s very difficult to return to the Hindu faith.

Poor people choose to become Christians, because the Church promised them advantages, things that would take the Indian government a long time to deliver, and they promised them healing from all diseases just by coming to the Sunday prayers in the church.”

Found via Fundamentally Wrong.

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Dharma Encounters Dharma Quotes Our Society

Agree to Disagree – Conversations on Conversion

Agree to Disagree – Conversations on Conversion

Download e-book @ http://conversion.buddhists.sg

 

It is important to Agree to Disagree.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong highlighted the importance of maintaining racial and religious harmony through tolerance and restraint, as well as preserving the common space that all Singaporeans share.

Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng observed that amid the increase in religious proselytisation activities, security concerns are thrown up when “overzealous and self-righteous” followers engage in aggressive and insensitive propagation of their faiths.

Find out how to support Buddhists who are facing proselytism in their workplace, school or even at home, so that they can maintain their stand with compassion and wisdom.

Say “No” compassionately to religious proselytism.

~ View e-book ~

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Misc Quotes

Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise

TED talk – Barry Schwartz: The real crisis? We stopped being wise

Feb 2009

Barry Schwartz makes a passionate call for “practical wisdom” as an antidote to a society gone mad with bureaucracy. He argues powerfully that rules often fail us, incentives often backfire, and practical, everyday wisdom will help rebuild our world.

Check out the 20 mins short video.

I find Barry’s following message especially true:

“…  as we turn increasingly to rules, rules and incentives may make things better in the short run, but they create a downward spiral that makes them worse in the long run. Moral skill is chipped away by an over reliance on rules that deprives us on the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations and moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing. And without intending it, by appealing to rules and incentives, we are engaging in a war on wisdom.”

In life, there are apparently many questions without known answers, and many situations seen as hopeless and beyond our control. When “we” can’t understand or solve these problems at our level, we tend to turn to “higher entity” for answers.

I guess it’s a lot easier for most of us to push the personal responsibility of our lives to an external entity. That way, we avoid the accountability for our own actions. Harmful actions can thus be proudly committed in the name of the “higher entity” without remorse or guilt. We stopped doing the right thing, because “right” is now fuzzy.

It’s always easier to simply believe and not question because we’ll have less work to do, less facts to verify, less concepts to learn and digest, and less cultivation to do. “Why so serious?”, some will say. Because ignorance begets suffering. We all need that wisdom beyond blind faith to start taking responsibility of our lives.

IMHO, Barry Schwartz’s secular statement above says it well, if you substitute “rules” with “dogmas” and “incentives” with concepts such as “believers will rise to heaven while non-believers suffer in hell forever”.

We need to stop creating or turning into zombies. Wisdom must take center stage. Wisdom guides all actions.