Religion, Minorities, Trust

Religion is one of the most sensitive social issues in the world. With the combination of
beliefs, norms and values, religion is a fragile non-material culture as well. Religion is a social
construct for the sake of humanity.

Humans with the dominant power in hand subjectively adjusted the rules and regulations
throughout the history which simply means that religion is a community where people live with
limitations of thinking to a certain extent. It is human nature to have bias towards their beliefs,
however religion is a scapegoat when people get intoxicated by too much use of poisonous
exclusivism as Karl Marx said ‘religion is the opium of the masses’.

From my perspective, religion is another sort of label to build walls between one another
since it is not a necessity for a human to adhere with in a daily life. Humanity does not originally
come from being religious but from being humane itself. On the other hand, religion itself was a
fruit of humanity, indeed.

Religion is an attraction where people find their comfort. That is what missionaries are
exactly for. Bowing down towards the nature by the threat of natural disasters got washed out by
a new narrative story which people felt so-called miracles along with a higher stage of
civilization. The narrations are so strong that people have clung to and handed down their
respective religions for centuries. Now the miracles are challenged by the contemporary
philosophy and the advancement of science. The old interpretations were no longer reasonable
enough for the modern society, so the new adaptable one is called in. The compatible theology
with the present day, patching the holes of the previous conservatism, would even take time for
the majority of fundamentalists. Then people will keep on going through new ideologies over
time.

Religious exclusivism and racism are the only two most loathsome ideas to me. Besides,
they both have been the top world problems from the beginning of civilization and made the
world a worse place to live in. As no man is an island, of course, we humans are supposed to be
coherent with each other despite the background institutions like religions and races. The core
essence of the truthful teachings of religions must be one of the amenities of life. The more
integrity one has, the more broadminded one becomes.
 Nowadays, almost everyone in our country is in touch with social media, daily fed by the
news of conflicts between the military and the ethnic groups. No official state religion is dictated
but the government obviously shows preference for the Buddhism, the majority religion. When it
comes to politics, religion is a wonderful nursery rhyme for the preschool of fundamentalism.
One of the most wicked political tricks is brainwashing people with false religious doctrines and
then dividing groups into groups with hatred. On Facebook, unethical pages are deliberately
provoking a storm of wrath in people’s hearts by posting racist captions especially on crime
articles which ordinary people are easily affected by.

What is more, even in humans ourselves, we have an inclination toward confirmation

bias. As the saying goes “Blood is thicker than water”, people have ethnocentric assumptions.
Beyond that, racism is of too much ignorance and prejudice just like religious exclusivism. In
relationships, people normally get a problem with one of those two affairs either intimidated by
the family case or prioritized by their own bias. Yet, I still wish I could believe in love that
knows no bounds. Thus far, it is such a utopian dream for me to come true though.

Trust is a mind contract between two or more people. Mutual trust is the fundamental
issue that underlies peace which we have longed for over many decades. Trust is very delicate
that once it is lost, it takes a considerably great amount of time to redeem it. Sometimes it could
even mean it is lost forever. Depending on the business that trust is built with, it becomes more
demanding. Especially civil wars in Myanmar have disorientated both sides and the trust
agreement processes are going on off-course.

Unless we conquer our egoistic bias, we can never achieve a harmonious atmosphere. We
need to know ourselves with a skeptical point of view, keep studying about the world we are
living in and most importantly, be a decent human with a heart of gold no matter who we are.
Only then will we have integrity and start with us for the greater good.

Submitted by: Mann Mark Tang

Submitted to: Teacher Fanang Lum