WHEN IGNORANCE IS BLISS

As the Jesuits say, all you need is seven years and by that seventh year the child would be capable of believing anything, however ridiculous, impossible, illogical or improbable those beliefs may sound to you and I.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived — OSCAR WILDE.

Give me the child for his first seven years and I will give you the man — THE JESUITS.

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The man loved his wife so much that when she died giving birth he thought of taking his own life and if not for his new baby daughter he would have probably done so. After he had buried his wife he took his baby daughter and walked for days deep into the forest until he reached a lovely open area beside the river.

For 35 years father and daughter lived there and survived off the land by growing crops, hunting and fishing. The only form of education the daughter received was his ‘philosophy’ that her father shared with her.

One day the father found it difficult to get out of bed and he knew that his time was up. He told his daughter he was dying and that when he does she should bury him behind their house and leave the forest and return to civilisation.

After she had buried her father, she sadly left their home and walked for days back to the village where she was born. When she arrived at the village she told the villagers who she is and many of the older villagers remembered the tragic incidence of the death of her mother and her father disappearing with his baby daughter the next day.

One family volunteered to give her shelter and said that the next day, a Sunday, they will bring her to church and introduce her to the rest of the village.

“What is a church?” she asked.

“A church is the place where you go to pray to God,” the surprised villagers told her.

“What is pray and who is God?” she asked.

By now it was apparent that her father had not only turned his back on humanity but also on God so they patiently explained religion, the Holy Books, and the entire history of the creation of humankind as told in the Holy Books to her.

After a concise three-hour crash course regarding the stories of the prophets right up to the virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, heaven, hell, and so on, the girl asked, “Are you saying you believe all these stories? There is absolutely no logic in what you say and no evidence that all these incidences actually happened.”

The shocked villagers did not know how to respond. “But you need faith to believe these stories,” they told her. “And the more unbelievable the stories are, the stronger your faith would be.”

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As the Jesuits say, all you need is seven years to turn a child into a believer. And children will always believe what the grownups say never mind how illogical or improbable the stories may sound.

I lived in Terengganu for 20 years so I know that many people there believe in toyol, a small and bald naughty spirit that you can task with doing all sorts of things. If you are a master to a toyol you can get it, amongst others, to steal money for you.

Many Terengganu people also believe in santau. This is a form of black magic where you can send poison ‘through the air’ to kill your enemies. It is believed that many people in Terengganu have been killed by santau and the sign that they are victims of santau is when they suddenly die and the body turns blue.

Terengganu people also believe in puntianak, a sort of female vampire that flies through the air looking for blood, especially from women who have just given birth. It is reported that many people have stumbled across puntianak sucking the blood of their victims and you neutralise the puntianak by embedding a nail into its neck.

Then there is the orang minyak, people who can transform into any form of animal to do their mischief, raping virgins just one of them.

Just to digress a bit, back in the 1980s there was an orang minyak that was terrorising Wakaf Mempelam in Kuala Terengganu. One day the villagers laid an ambush and they saw the orang minyak sneaking up on a house. They then chased the orang minyak and he ran into the belukar (bushes).

They surrounded the belukar but the orang minyak had disappeared. However, there was a cow there, so the villagers attacked the cow and killed it. Since then the orang minyak was never seen again so the villagers were convinced that the orang minyak had transformed himself into that cow that they had killed.

These are just some of the many weird things that the Terengganu people believe. So it is not difficult to believe what others may consider nonsense if you live in a community that believes such things and from childhood the grownups teach you that all these mystical things are actually true.

As the Jesuits say, all you need is seven years and by that seventh year the child would be capable of believing anything, however ridiculous, impossible, illogical or improbable those beliefs may sound to you and I.

Now, these same Terengganu people never grew up with stories of the crucifixion, resurrection, Trinity and whatnot. Hence if you were to tell them these stories they would not believe them. Those stories are all nonsense as far as they are concerned.

They would, however, believe in toyol, santau, puntianak, orang minyak, etc., even if you may think these beliefs are all nonsense.

As Oscar Wilde said, truth is opinions that have survived. So truth to the Terengganu people may be nonsense to you but then your truths are also nonsense to the Terengganu people.

Many of you have posted comments in Malaysia Today (some which I did not bother to publish because they were too abusive and too personal) whacking me regarding my views on religion. You then posted various verses from the Bible and Qur’an to correct my errors and educate me on the truth.

What you do not realise is that truth is subjective. You believe what you believe to be the truth because you have been indoctrinated since young to believe these to be true. If you had been born and brought up in Terengganu you would believe toyol, santau, puntianak, orang minyak, and so on to be true as well.

And if, like that girl in my story above, you have been raised for 35 years without any exposure to religion you would laugh at all these incredible stories from the ‘holy books’ and would think that all those people who believe in these stories must be downright stupid.

And that is the real truth.