UNDERSTANDING THE JEALOUS GOD

Yes, faith is a strange thing. It not only allows you to believe in what cannot be proven but it also helps you to hate one another. And we hate because we have faith — we have faith that we are right and that everyone else is wrong. If we did not have faith there would be very little reason to hate and kill one another. And faith is what religion says we must have.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

When you start talking about religion, in particular regarding the Abrahamic faiths or Semitic religions, you will attract many comments by Christians and Muslims who will quote verses from the Bible, Qur’an and/or Hadith. They will copy and paste these quotes to prove that you are wrong in your assumptions.

Hence these quotes, verses or sayings are the ‘evidence’ that you are wrong. They will also tell you that you do not understand what these ‘holy books’ mean and/or you do not understand what you are saying.

Christians and Muslims may be badly divided and have been for more than 1,000 years. However, all you need to do is to question or comment (adversely) on the religions of Abraham and you will immediately see both Christians and Muslims united in defence of their doctrine, ideology or dogma.

Let us say I start talking about Malay nationalism and I comment that Malaysia belongs to the Malays and that all the non-Malays are immigrants and hence second-class citizens. I then quote from a book written by an unknown author who is rumoured to be a Malay nationalist who tells us the story of Tok Janggut.

Tok Janggut was the man the British occupiers killed (just like Jesus was killed by the Roman occupiers) because he fought against British colonialism and wanted self-rule because, according to Tok Janggut, Malaya belongs to the Malays. Hence, based on what Tok Janggut said, which was reported by an unknown author, Malaysia belongs to the Malays and all non-Malays have no claim over the country.

I have the ‘evidence’ to support what I say. The evidence is that book, which Malays swear is authentic, that quotes what Tok Janggut said, which Malays swear he did say. And since I believe in that book and I believe what that book said is 100% correct, then my views regarding the Malays being the owners of Malaysia and all non-Malays not having a claim on the country is the gospel.

Now, some of you may disagree with my views. But my views are based on my belief. And I have a book written by an unknown author that quotes Tok Janggut. Hence you have no business questioning or disputing my views. To do so would be an insult to my belief and an act of sedition — since the crime of sedition means to utter any comment that may unsettle me and which may result in violence or bloodshed if I get unhappy.

I am sure my argument regarding my views about who owns the country based on that book by an unknown author that quotes Tok Janguut who died for the Malays sounds very silly. But if I were to offer the exact same argument regarding my views about who owns your soul based on the ‘holy books’ written by an unknown author you will not think it sounds silly.

Why is that? Why can the same argument that is used in one instance sound silly but used in another instance sound very sensible? After all, it is the same argument — only that it is used in two different instances.

I suppose that is because when you put forward any argument it must be logical but when the argument involves religion it does not need to be logical. Religion is not based on logic, most of you argue. Religion is based on faith.

But then what is faith? Faith means believing in something that sounds very illogical and cannot be proven. If you can offer the evidence then it would not be called faith. It would probably be called science. Only when you cannot support what you say or believe with evidence or science will you use the word faith.

If I were to say that earth revolves around the sun you do not need faith to believe that. Science can prove that. But if I were to say that there is a teapot in the sky revolving behind the sun — which you can’t see because it is hidden by the sun and hence I cannot prove it — then you would need faith to believe that.

Hence my theory on the earth revolving around the sun needs no faith for you to believe that but my theory on the teapot revolving behind the sun needs faith if you want to believe that. And it requires faith because it sounds stupid and I cannot prove it.

Now do you understand why you need faith to believe what religion says? If you do not have faith you will never believe in what cannot be proven just like you will never believe that there is a teapot revolving behind the sun, which you cannot see and hence I cannot prove.

So, if you have a religion that means you have faith and the reason you have faith is because you are prepared to believe in what cannot be proven and what is based just on what some books written by unknown people thousands of years ago say.

However, in spite of what you may or may not believe, how do you rate the God of Abraham? What type of God is the God of Abraham?

Assuming you have never come into contact with any of the Abrahamic faiths or Semitic religions and you have never read a single of the many ‘holy books’ (say, because you were living on another planet and just came down to earth very recently) and you open one of these books and read it, what would be your opinion of the God of Abraham?

Your first opinion would be that the God of Abraham is a very jealous God. He would not tolerate you worshipping or believing in any other God other than Him, the God of Abraham. And if you do believe in or worship any other God, you will be punished and sentenced to an eternity in the fires of hell after you die.

Then you will probably think that since God created us and programmed us very specifically, why did He not also program us to believe in just Him and not to believe in anyone else?

How we think and what we believe is all up to God. There are many natural things that we have been programmed with. Sex, for example, is something that we have been programmed with. Sex is natural. It is what we were born with. Why can’t we have been born to naturally accept the one God as well?

Then there is legal sex and there is illegal sex. While we have been programmed to want sex we were never programmed as to what is the right sex and what is the wrong sex. I am not sure whether animals are gay but male dogs always seek out female dogs. Do male dogs look for male dogs?

Dogs are programmed as to what is right sex. But God did not program humans the same way. And then because we were not properly programmed the way dogs are programmed God punishes humans for wanting the wrong sex.

Were dogs created perfect and humans not created perfect? Why are there so many flaws in humans? God is supposed to be perfect and does not make mistakes. But then there are so many mistakes with humans.

We are heartless, cruel, greedy, selfish, arrogant, egoistical, lustful, power-crazy, self-centred, inconsiderate, and much more. Even animals are not like this. Hence humans are worse than animals. And humans are supposed to be the vicegerent on earth. Yet humans are the worst of God’s creations.

Then God realised he made a mistake and was regretful and decided to wipe out every living thing on earth and start again. So God chose Noah and his family as the new experiment where the old experiment had failed and the whole world was flooded and everything and everyone other than what was in the Ark died.

Why did God have to kill everything on earth just to punish some wrongdoers? With the power available to God could He not just send a disease to wipe out the bad people or only wipe out humans while leaving the animals and plants that did no wrong unpunished?

By now that person who was living on another planet and who just came down to earth and opened one of the holy books to read would begin to wonder who in heaven’s name wrote all these stories? They sound so incredible and do not paint a good picture of this God of Abraham.

There are so much inconsistencies and it appears like this God blundered all along the way and had to keep correcting His mistakes. He did not program humans properly and had to keep sending prophets to teach humans how to behave (124,000 prophets in total according to Islam).

And yet even after all these prophets, 124,000 according to Islam, humans still deviate from God’s commands and defy God. Humans then create thousands of religions that contradict each other and then kill each other because they disagree with what is the true religion.

This person who was living on another planet and who just came down to earth and opened one of the holy books to read would probably come to a conclusion that if God really does exist then he certainly made a mess out of his creation called humans. This person who was living on another planet and who just came down to earth and opened one of the holy books to read would then jump back into his spaceship and go back to his planet where there is no jealous God, no thousands of religions, no hundreds of holy books, and where people live in peace and harmony with love for fellow creations.

Yes, faith is a strange thing. It not only allows you to believe in what cannot be proven but it also helps you to hate one another. And we hate because we have faith — we have faith that we are right and that everyone else is wrong. If we did not have faith there would be very little reason to hate and kill one another. And faith is what religion says we must have.

Hmm…when’s the next spaceship leaving earth? Maybe I should also book a passage on it.