For me it’s clear that I would like a leader that is Christian only because he or she shares my religious beliefs and in doing so I would hope they have the same moral standards that dictate in my religion. It matters to me because I know someone who might be “heathen, homosexual for example does and would not hold the same value on my moral Christian beliefs as I believe a Christian would have. Someone who can do all the things you describe is important but the foundation/heart of the person needs to be there first and foremost. Thanks for a good thought provoking article.

A country is like a horizontal line, which mean a relationship between us / pluralism.

A religion is like vertical line, which mean a relationship between human and their God.

Just another thought!
Nice to see you.

I was trying to make the point that almost none of us can escape to be born and raised in a specific philosophy and/or ideology. And that it is hard to look at that philosophy or ideology in a neutral, critical way as if one was totally independent of it’s influence. Therefore one needs “education and training in independent thinking and moral or civil courage”.

That goes for evangelicals, colonialists,pacifists, Roman catholics, communists, nationalists or Muslims, I guess. In no way I intended to imply that specifically “Indonesian people are not well-educated in particular social aspects”.

I have to add something here, as i have been studying religions in general for over 20 years and i have lived in several countries, all of which are ‘ruled’ by a dominating religion. (and i do not use the term ruled lightly here)

When trying to reason with any religious person, the first thing you find is NO REASON. the brain is a clean slate at birth and the experiences and ‘teachings’ it receives actually creates physical connections. if a person is taught from a young age to have ‘faith’, it is very difficult to change this and there need be no reality or reasoning when arguing with this type of person. for them, their religion, their god, is paramount. This is not a light matter, it means that religion has been, is and always will be connected to the ruling factions of the society and will always be used to manipulate what they call sheeple, mostly into some form of submission. this is augmented through the use of educational and political systems that work in union to establish a system of control. That is point one. Religion is not about any god, it is about control.

Point 2. All religions especially the monotheistic ones preach that we should ‘love’ our neighbour, but then do not practise this, in fact they are all openly against other people of other religions, thus the judaic law (it is more of a law than a religion) teaches that these should treat those that do not follow the judaic law as different. in fact, the judaic law is openly racist to all others, the islamic religion, which you talk of and bring up some interesting points, i cannot speak too much of.

however what may appear to be undemocratic or unconstitutional in your country, i have to say is much the same in catholic or christian countries, these proclaim freedom yet ask many of the same things that you point out in your article, they are also anti-any other religion, and force the catholic/christian religion onto their fellow countrymen in much the same manner, it all comes down to the same thing, control of the population, and since there are different control centres (religions), these are against each other, to the point of death.

I feel very strongly about these matters simply because i have seen first hand the manner in which religions are used to cause war, death, pain, exactly the opposite of what they preach, this is the ultimate hypocrisy. Similar to Bush proclaiming ordering the deaths of innocent civilian lives in order to ‘free’ the population, the world is full of hypocrisy. Unfortunately, for free thinking individuals any form of change is made extremely difiicult, because the whole system revolves around the hypocrisy, and ultimately it is not the people that rule and manipulate that are solely to blame, it is also the rest, because in essence we ACCEPT the world the way it is.

The world will not move forward until all religion is completely abolished, and this will not happen any time soon. Like the man in the movie Matrix, he likes the meat, it tastes good, it does not matter that it is not real, it does not matter to him the fate of the rest, only his own pleasure. This is ultimately the problem, and unfortunately, this is the way of humanity.

have a good day.