finished.
10 days. 10 days of hell. hyperbole? on the contrary, 10 days being the committee of the International Summer School 2008(thank you Germany for funding this program!) has taught me much about hard work, responsibilities , time management and so on. seems quite an interesting experience to be told and retold for generations to come(now that’s what i call hyperbole!).
but no, this little story of mine will definitely be not about my experience(but it is somewhat related) in this committee. What for if i may ask? a much more interesting story shall be told and must be told.
and that story is of me and my God, or perhaps of me and my religion.
i am a Catholic, love being one. I love Christmas. love those gifts i get every year. love the songs people sing at church. love their teachings concerning love and forgiveness. but yet, although my love towards Catholicism is rather high, i seldom go to church. Seldom meaning i go to church perhaps at Christmas, Easter and maybe some other special occasions which forces me to go to church. Other than that i spend most of my Sunday’s just doing what i please, either it be writing this not so inspiring blog of mine, or read a book or two.
well last week while being the committee and working in hell, i had little time to rest and when i did, i usually grabbed a cup of tea and went outside into the warm sun. all went well, until one day. i met a friend , an old friend, who loved God and Jesus and all those angelical, holy things.
we started our conversation with the usual, ‘hey, how are you doing?’ ‘where are you going?’ and so on.and then a question arose. a question of the divine. the divine and me. God and me.
religion and me.
i never really liked talking about religion, i see religion as something personal which no one else needs to know. why do you need to know what i do with my religion? i see it as discriminatory. but perhaps not all people see what i see.
actually it was ok at first. we talked about God, christianity, Christmas, Easter, other religions but then when he asked me about how often i go to church and i answered about 5 times a year, he looked deeply surprised and upset. from that very second i knew this conversation was about to heat up.
You wont go to heaven if you don’t go to church Ben, Satan will punish you and you will be forever in hell.
yes, translated into English from Indonesia those above words are exactly what i remember him saying.
forever in hell.
Sad.
My morality, my worthiness of me being able to go to heaven or not is judged by me going to church or not.
that is just plain sad, my dear readers.
going to church (or other religious places) or not does not make you a good or bad man. you can not say he is bad or even evil because has not gone to church. that is pure hypocrite.
i do not kill, i do not steal, i do not get into fights, i don’t even smoke. but yes i do not go to church as often as i should. but does that make a bad man? unworthy of not going to heaven?
is my morallity judged by the counts of how much i go to church?
why must it be like that? i know i am not perfect, i have my faults, so does everybody.
but who are you to say that i will go to hell, because i have failed to do one of the duties of christianity?
sad but true.
wise people are hard to find these days. i pitty them.
i have said this once and i shall say it again:
“yang saya butuhkan adalah seorang yang bermoral bukan beragama. karena yang bergama belum tentu bermoral. Jujur, saya jauh lebih menghormati seorang agnostis ataupun seorang atheis. mengapa? karena mereka tidak melakukan sebuah kejahatan, bukan karena mereka takut akan Tuhan namun karena mereka mengerti bahwa hal tersebut memang salah dan mereka mengerti bahwa mereka tidak ingin diberlakukan sedemikian rupa oleh orang lain.”
mala fide – dengan itikad jahat
