Back in high school, I was sitting next to this Good Christian Girl. One day, we received our assignments for the week, and upon looking at the questions involved I exclaimed “OH MY GOD!”
Good Christian Girl turned to me in shock and said “You just swore!”
Puzzled, I looked back at her and said “Noleh… I only said ‘Oh My God’. What did you hear?”
“You swore again!” yelled the Good Christian Girl. “You used God’s name in vain.”
I cocked my eyebrows and said “But I’m not Christian…”
“Yes I know, but I feel offended that you insulted my God.”
“Har? I where got insult your God? Relax lah… Jesus!”
“Now you’ve said Jesus’ name in vain!”
I’m gonna put my final words on this long pointless debate that seems to go round and round with no end.
I’m not a subscriber of the Christian faith. I’m not a subscriber of the Islamic faith.
I’m a subscriber of Astro. But that’s besides the point.
My point is, I believe in respecting one another’s religion. By that I mean I CANNOT tolerate people inciting hatred, and I CANNOT tolerate people slurring on a religion or race.
Example: “Chinese guys have pencil dicks.“
My pencil.
However I also believe in tolerence that works both ways.
If I’m not a subscriber to your faith, am I expected to follow your way of life? Your code of ethics? Of course not.
For a non-Christian to follow the code of a Christian is as absurd as the Singaporean Court following Australia’s book of law!
If I don’t subscribe to Christianity, and I said words like “Oh My God”, which to the majority of the people is fine, then won’t you agree that my Good Christian Girl is guilty of over-reacting?
(Btw, some Christians I know do not masturbate and do not believe in the use of condoms because they believe semen should only be used for breeding babies, otherwise it’s considered murder. Lucky I don’t have to follow their way of life)
By the same token, I am not Muslim so if I use the word “Al**h” in vain, or rear a dog, or play 4D, which again to most people is fine, then am I in the wrong or are you being overly sensitive?
The point again and again is that this is NOT a racial NOR a religious issue. It is about accepting a reasonable level of political incorrectness. It is about you understanding me, me understanding you. It is about accepting the fact that not everyone is going the live the life you want them to live, and not everyone is going to say the words you want your ears to hear.
We have our differences, but we TOLERATE our differences. We don’t ask people to take down posts because you think it offend yourself eventhough most people are fine with it. Just like we don’t stop people from yelling over the microphone at 5am every single morning when most people are still in bed.
We TOLERATE it. And THAT, to me, is the key to harmony.
End of discussion.
I wrote this initally as a comment but since I put so much effort in it already I might as well publish it as an entry. Sorry, no further comments allowed.