English is not my first language, so forgive me if I make any grammar or language mistake.
I’m a 20-years-old Malaysian Chinese who is taking Physics degree in one of our country’s local universities. Majority of my family members practice Buddhism while others are Christian (converted due to marriage). I used to believe in the existence of a God (or more specifically, a personal god), the concept of heaven and hell, supernatural phenomenon, just to name a few, during my childhood as I was influenced by the words and actions of my grandparents who can be considered as hardcore Buddhist. (“Hardcore” in the sense that they often listen and accept every piece of information about their religion without much question.) In Malaysia, I’m also surrounded by people from different religion: Islam, Christian, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc, so it’s very uncommon to find anyone here without any religious belief.
As I grew older and my ability to think critically improved, I started to question the existence of God and the validity of religion because there’re things in religion which are unfair, inconsistent, immoral and doesn’t make sense at all. So I started to find answers, and it’s this curiosity that introduced me to atheism when I was a secondary school student. Although I did not understand most of the science behind it when I started to explore atheism (e.g. theory of evolution), I do agree on the logic behind it (e.g. the problem of evil). My belief that all religions are flawed and should not be trusted entirely only strengthen in time as I explore how our world actually works, especially in the field of Physics as I find this subject interesting and fascinating.
I must admit that Physics play a huge factor not only on my view about religion, but my whole life as well. It enable myself to see the world in a different way. When I saw a car moving, I realize that the car will be shorter in length and the time move slower inside the car relative to myself. When others think that Earth is pulling things towards itself, I realize that those things are also pulling Earth and each other toward themselves. When others look up to the sky and admire the beauty of the stars, I realize that light moves at a limited speed and I’m actually looking into the past. It teaches me that everything in the world is not as simple as someone see the world in the first glance, not limiting yourself to a single frame of reference, learn to think outside the box, never lose a holy curiosity and never accept anything as granted.
I used to be an arrogant, selfish, stingy, ignorant child in the past. No thanks to religion, now I’m a different man. It’s quite an irony, in my country at least, that someone who doesn’t have any religious belief can become a human with a strong sense of human’s moral values and ethics. Since we’re young, we’ve been taught that moral and religion are not two separate things and one doesn’t come without another. So irreligious people like me are often branded as immoral in my country, which is the results of the fact that many immoral people in my country mostly consists of people who don’t have a strong religious background. But they don’t realize that branding all irreligious people as immoral is just as prejudice as, for example, branding all Muslims are terrorist, and prejudice is immoral. Prejudice is prejudice, no matter the form.
Anyway, there’re still a lot of things for me to learn and I’m looking forward to learn from this forum. I’m currently fighting and resisting the indoctrination by the members of the so-called Unification Church as I wrote this post, so I hope I could use some help.
I’m a 20-years-old Malaysian Chinese who is taking Physics degree in one of our country’s local universities. Majority of my family members practice Buddhism while others are Christian (converted due to marriage). I used to believe in the existence of a God (or more specifically, a personal god), the concept of heaven and hell, supernatural phenomenon, just to name a few, during my childhood as I was influenced by the words and actions of my grandparents who can be considered as hardcore Buddhist. (“Hardcore” in the sense that they often listen and accept every piece of information about their religion without much question.) In Malaysia, I’m also surrounded by people from different religion: Islam, Christian, Taoism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc, so it’s very uncommon to find anyone here without any religious belief.
As I grew older and my ability to think critically improved, I started to question the existence of God and the validity of religion because there’re things in religion which are unfair, inconsistent, immoral and doesn’t make sense at all. So I started to find answers, and it’s this curiosity that introduced me to atheism when I was a secondary school student. Although I did not understand most of the science behind it when I started to explore atheism (e.g. theory of evolution), I do agree on the logic behind it (e.g. the problem of evil). My belief that all religions are flawed and should not be trusted entirely only strengthen in time as I explore how our world actually works, especially in the field of Physics as I find this subject interesting and fascinating.
I must admit that Physics play a huge factor not only on my view about religion, but my whole life as well. It enable myself to see the world in a different way. When I saw a car moving, I realize that the car will be shorter in length and the time move slower inside the car relative to myself. When others think that Earth is pulling things towards itself, I realize that those things are also pulling Earth and each other toward themselves. When others look up to the sky and admire the beauty of the stars, I realize that light moves at a limited speed and I’m actually looking into the past. It teaches me that everything in the world is not as simple as someone see the world in the first glance, not limiting yourself to a single frame of reference, learn to think outside the box, never lose a holy curiosity and never accept anything as granted.
I used to be an arrogant, selfish, stingy, ignorant child in the past. No thanks to religion, now I’m a different man. It’s quite an irony, in my country at least, that someone who doesn’t have any religious belief can become a human with a strong sense of human’s moral values and ethics. Since we’re young, we’ve been taught that moral and religion are not two separate things and one doesn’t come without another. So irreligious people like me are often branded as immoral in my country, which is the results of the fact that many immoral people in my country mostly consists of people who don’t have a strong religious background. But they don’t realize that branding all irreligious people as immoral is just as prejudice as, for example, branding all Muslims are terrorist, and prejudice is immoral. Prejudice is prejudice, no matter the form.
Anyway, there’re still a lot of things for me to learn and I’m looking forward to learn from this forum. I’m currently fighting and resisting the indoctrination by the members of the so-called Unification Church as I wrote this post, so I hope I could use some help.
True philanthropists will never choose to ascend to the heaven, for they can't stand enjoying eternal peace and happiness while watching others suffer on the Earth, and they will do anything to remove God from its throne if necessary without hurting others in the process for the benefits of the human race.
