q8. Ho Choong Kai, Ma Si Cheng, Nicholas Phung-Zhang

Topic ‘Religion should always remain a private affair.' Do you agree?

Introduction ●Religion is the belief in and worship of a being of a higher spiritual order, or the absence thereof. ●I believe that religion can be a public affair, as long as there is peaceful coexistence, as it has potential to spark social and political unrest through zealotry and extremism.

First Point ●Firstly, religion should always remain a private affair because it is a volatile issue that can spark conflict and cause political unrest. ●Countless religious conflicts have happened over the centuries due to one or more religions being overly public about their religion, to the point where it seemed like they were recruiting people.

First Point ●Examples of religious conflicts are the Northern Ireland conflict from 1968 to 1998, with a death toll of over 3,500. In this conflict, the Catholic and Protestants who supported union with Ireland and union with the UK respectively, often fought each other over their beliefs, which could involve burning of businesses or even killing. Although the Northern Ireland conflict may be an extreme case, it shows just how severe inter-religious conflicts can be. ●Another example is the Islamic State (IS). The IS is a Muslim group of extremists who force their twisted Muslim beliefs onto other Muslims around the world, like in Malaysia, to recruit them for their “holy war”. This recruiting is done at the expense of collateral damage to the area around Iraq and Syria. ●Hence, religion should be kept private because it is a volatile issue-- keeping one’s beliefs to themselves would also reduce the possibility that others see them as forcing their beliefs on others.

Second point The spreading of religion can also cause social unrest. Hence, I believe that the spreading of religion should be acceptable to the extent that it causes unrest. Citizens in many developed countries commonly comment on how people from other regions invade their homeland and introduce new religions. This can be seen in London, where the open immigration policy has caused the destruction of many landmarks to build mosques and temples, both of which had nothing to do with the UK originally. Yet thanks to them, the some shops had to be made halal while others kosher. This has made the citizens unhappy, due to the new competition, to whom they lose out on business, and if the immigrants perform better than them, loss of pride and sense of belonging due to not being the best in their own homeland. Having such a public religious profile will generate dissent and will cause discrimination. Hence, religion should be kept a private affair, and the spreading of different religions discouraged.

Third Point Finally, in any case, private or public, extremism should not breed in any religion. Extremism is a twisted version of a religion that tends to the belief that their religion is dominant, or the best. Most extremists would then cause unrest by using violent methods to fight for their cause. An example is terrorist group Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda, who claimed to have caused the 9/11 incident, among other tragic incidents, have caused many lives to be lost, and money to be wasted. Extremism is an example of why religion should be kept private, over being public.

Counter + Rebuttal However, it is not necessary that religions’ publicity will cause trouble. Public practices, such as the processions during Thaipusam, enable a religion to keep its original form and enables followers to express faith freely without encumbrance. However, such practices that bring about more benefits are rarer in today’s society as it can be seen from the majority of citizens, from the CIA World Factbook, having a religion ratio of 31.5% Christian, 23.2% Muslim and 15% Hindus with the rest having even less percentage. These highest three number of religious followers already account for more than half the number of religious followers but do not carry out practices as seen in Thaipusam. They face conflict with one another which is seen even in history, a famous historic case being the Thirty Years War, between Roman Catholics and Protestants,which had approximately estimates between three to eleven million deaths amounting to around two percent of the world’s population. As the percentage of religious followers are unbalanced, this results in conflicts as they will likely clash as they are unable to integrate with one another due to their differences in population and how their practices can be vastly different from one another, especially when their gods have different views of life that are worlds apart.

Conclusion In conclusion, many religious conflicts are actually caused by people making their religions public and not accepting other religious practices. In any case, the spreading of religion can be public, as long as it does not cause unrest. Hence the best method to avoid unrest due to religious causes is to keep one’s religious beliefs as private as possible.