Had a discussion with some friends over dinner abt religion, culture and how different it is between the different race in Msia. Then I discover that I do not practice alot of 'chinese' culture/ religion at home or in my life.
When we were young and was still staying in my dad's so called office/hse, my parents used to pray to this indian idol called Sai Baba. Then when my dad's business got better and bought a hse, we moved to the new hse but we didnt bring along Sai Baba with us (much to my grandmother's dissapointment). My parents did not really bring us to temple much besides the annual 'Kow Wong Yea' celebration. Then when each of us had to sit for the 'BIG' goverment exam in school (e.g. UPSR, PMR, SPM, etc) my mum would go to temple to pray for a good luck charm which she will burn into a cup of water n force it down out throat on the first day of exam...
Then one day my mum told us that my elder sis was actually adopted to the 'Kwan Yin'.... n as far as I can remember, I dont think my sis ever went n pray to her before.. which is quite funny. So after she got married in Oct last yr, my mum suddenly remembered that her eldest daughter was pledged to Kwan Yin and she did not asked to take her back before her wedding... which I assume is 'wrong'. My mum was suppose give some offerings and request to 'un-adopt' my sis from Kwan Yin before the wedding.. but due to her short-term memory loss, this was only done few months after the wedding... this is kinda funny..
My family is seriously one funny bunch when it comes to practising the religion... I dont even know whether we have one... !! That's why all my life I always tell people i'm an atheist, although officially we're buddist. I think its good to have faith and believe in something.. but when the belief involves constant execution of certain rituals, it becomes something else.
Something to think abt.. issit really important to have a religion?
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Its really hard to tell a non-practising (insert religion)/ non-practiser the importance of religion. But let me say that the core of faith (any faith) is the believe that omnipotence exist, that there are (is) powerful force(s) even science cannot explain (yet). Faith ties in very closely to religion. All religion have practices though some factions of all religions do tend to go to the extremes. Think of practices as 'rules' or 'law'..if there are so many people not obeying them we have chaos, and societies and even nations cannot advance or prosper if any form of "structure" is non-existent. Untill one reads any of the 'holy' books be it the Qur'an, Bible, Buddhist scriptures and comprehend for oneself, one cannot really judge whether religion is important or not..
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