WARNING: RELIGIOUS TOPIC

[si|verfish]

I say the guy is an idiot. It is these over the top people who are causing so much chaos in this world. Once had a friend who refused to rent a house because there was a buddhist temple next door. I was like WTF??? I'd strangle her on the spot if I could. No matter the religion, it definitely will not teach a follower to discriminate and be self righteous. People should learn to accept, understand, embrace their fellow men no matter the religion.

Going back to the guy who was scared to touch the "tuah pek kong". His believe in Our Lord and His teachings are way too shallow. if he truly believed in God then the "tuah pek kong" is nothing more than a figurine. Scared to sin indeed. Moron!

 

[cyclonite]

Satria95:

Sorry I don't have much time to elaborate but just a few short points which will help you understand better.

Firstly you must understand why we Christians shouldn't hold jossticks. Technically whatever you do physically has nothing wrong because you are not worshipping other Gods. ie: technically you can hold joss sticks and pretend to worship other Gods but that's just what's on the outside. Deep down in your heart you still believe in Jesus and believe that our God is the one and only God. So that's fine because God looks at our heart.

BUT!! the controvery over holding joss sticks comes because doing so will cause others to stumble as well. For example, if you have a non christian friend with you (which you definitely would have at your granpa's funeral) then he/she may be wondering 'How come Christians also can hold joss sticks wan?' or maybe another Christian friend more junior than you may be thinking 'How come this fella such a senior christian also holds joss sticks?'
So you see the issue is about misleading other people. And worse still as Christians we should live our lives so that people see Christ in us and so that people know we are Christians from 1 look. Holding joss sticks just goes the opposite.

The last point I wanna make, you must also know the origin of how joss sticks came about. In China last time, some people die during winter and there'll be no flowers to offer to the Gods when the person dies(coz it's winter). That's how joss sticks came about. Joss sticks are actually made of dried flowers rolled up and the purpose is so that it can fulfill the purpose of offering flowers anytime throughout the year. So holding joss sticks itself is signifying offering burnt offerings to another God. but again that's just on the external.

Anyway what you did was ok... alot of my ex senior church leaders follow throughout buddhist funerals too... it's to show respect to the deceased, but when it comes to holding joss sticks they will refuse.

 

[cyclonite]

To answer your 2nd question:

2) In your opinion, and given a funeral situation which is somewhat the same as above, where there is a "conflict" of religious proceedings but it involves a really closely loved one who has "gone home", what would you have done?

Well, like I said we have to be aware that we don't do things which might mislead others especially those who have not come to know Christ yet. And also we need to know what we are actually doing. We need to know which actions are actually a form of worshipping other Gods and which are just purely tradition.

 

[si|verfish]

cyclonite: I disagree with you a lot. Your first point I agree with. Your second point is just ridiculous. Looking Christ like? Misleading others? Bugger me.

 

[zique]

Originally posted by satria_95@Feb 20 2005, 21:24
SHORTER VERSION.

I'm Christian. My grand dad is Buddhist. According to the Bible, Christians should follow only the Christian teachings and should not follow the non Christian proceedings. When my grand dad passed away, the funeral proceedings was done in a Buddhist way. However, I have follow the Buddhist funeral proceedings for my grand dad, all except the handling of joss sticks, due to the respectful love I have for my grand dad.

1) Am I considered wrong for following the Buddhist proceedings?

2) In cases like this, what would you have done?

Dude,

I went through the same thing as you over the weekend.
Here's my 2 sen about how I'd look at it.

I am a Christian as well.

I went through all the Taoist proceedings (They pray to Kuan Yin) and there's all these prayers and joss stick handling and bowing and all. I have people that also question my faith as a Christian because I did all that but to me, what I did was

1) Respect for my Grandfather

2) To me, it's not a religion but a culture that I respect when it comes to what I did for my Grandpa

3) In the bible, it just say that it is not good to worship Deities as there is only One GOD. But even in the bible, there is also alot of things written about death and the way the people in the world of the Bible goes about it.

As long as within our self, we know that what we did is as a show of respect to the one we love and not as an act of rebellion, then it should be fine.

During the whole prayer sessions that went on, I did not once bow down to an idol or a poster of a chinese deity but I show my respect by bowing down to my grandpa as a final good bye before he was cremated.

Cheers,

 

[si|verfish]

Simplified version:

It doesn't matter even if you bow down towards a deity. Where does your faith lie? Does it lie with the Lord or with the deity? It's all in your heart. Everything else is superficial.

What good is it if you do everything Christians are supposed to do and not do in front of people but you have no faith in the Lord or you break the 10 commandments. I don't think there are many Christians who live strictly by how the Bible tells them to. If you are not one of these people, to criticise someone for doing something un-Christian is HYPOCRITICAL.

 

[cyclonite]

Originally posted by si|verfish@Feb 22 2005, 13:15
I don't think there are many Christians who live strictly by how the Bible tells them to.

That's true... so it's up to you whether you want to be like them or you want to stand out and do the right thing. The bible calls us to live our lives in such that when people see us they will know we are christians. If people don't do certain things then fine but it's your own choice to set your own values.

 

[satria_95]

Again, thanks for all your replies. Also, again, I'm sharing with y'all that I didn't feel any guilt or any feelings of that sort. I started this post with the purpose of gathering more opinions from different walks of life and till now, I'm still grateful with all the replies. Everyone has their own valid opinion and I'll still accept opinions from different cultures or religions, basically to broaden my understanding of other religions.

Oh yeah, I've also already got the point that there is nothing wrong with following proceedings of other religions so long as the heart remains true to our own religions. So the point here basically is that as long as our heart holds true to our own religion, what the physical body do does not matter. Well, in the case of this thread, that is. Other cases will have to be discussed separately. hehe

cyclonite,
Thanks for your reply too. Appreciate it. As for your point of praying/bowing to another deity/etc. , well, I didn't do that. However, that does not mean that I disrespect other religions. In fact, to be honest, I'm still interested to learn more about other religions because I'm basically a "want to know more" kind of guy when it comes to something that interests me.

Anyway, as I've mentioned earlier, I found out a few days later that my grand father was in fact.... a CHRISTIAN! hehehe But in any case, no matter what religion my grand dad is, he will always be my grand dad.

Originally posted by si|verfish @ Feb 22 2005@ 13:15
I don't think there are many Christians who live strictly by how the Bible tells them to.

I'm one of them. hahaha Well, I do understand the point of your posting. To some, they may not be able to get a grip of your posting but it's entirely a free world and people are free to get a grip of whatever they deem comfortable with. Chill dude, that's if you're starting to feel heated. :)

 

[InitialD]

Originally posted by lonewolf@Feb 21 2005, 14:03
holding a joss stick have nothing to do with religion.

its all culture on how u pray to your own GOD...even chinese muslims in China uses joss stick to pray to GOD...


there was one situation...a guy did ask me...he is a christian...he said..her mother-in-law ask her to move the "tuah pek kong" chinese god to another table..and he ask me wether is that a sin to hold the chinese god..and he scared..

so i told him...u believe in god?...he answer yes...so just use your hand and move the tuah pek kong...its nothing wrong with it..you are just moving it..you are not praying to it...so now you tell me u are scared...hmm...then why do u belive in GOD in the first place..?... :P ...correct or not guys?

lonewolf, I was watching a documentary on discovery channel about the book about how chinese found america b4 christopher columbus.

In the documentary, they were showing chinese muslim holding joss stick and offering to their ancestors.

I wonder what would happen if a parent pass away and his/her children refuse to attend or take part due to difference of religion??

 

[InitialD]

Originally posted by si|verfish@Feb 22 2005, 13:15
Simplified version:

It doesn't matter even if you bow down towards a deity. Where does your faith lie? Does it lie with the Lord or with the deity? It's all in your heart. Everything else is superficial.

What good is it if you do everything Christians are supposed to do and not do in front of people but you have no faith in the Lord or you break the 10 commandments. I don't think there are many Christians who live strictly by how the Bible tells them to. If you are not one of these people, to criticise someone for doing something un-Christian is HYPOCRITICAL.

silverfish, I agree with wat u say.

I just wanna say sometimes we have to remember our "RACE"...who we are..where we come from. Doesn't mean after converting to another religion you can forget about your race and your culture.

 

[si|verfish]

Originally posted by InitialD@Feb 22 2005, 23:44
silverfish, I agree with wat u say.

I just wanna say sometimes we have to remember our "RACE"...who we are..where we come from. Doesn't mean after converting to another religion you can forget about your race and your culture.

Yup. That's one of my points.

We are Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity (example only ah) living in the 21st century. Not Hebrews in ancient times. To embrace another religion is not to forget ones roots.

 

[cyclonite]

Originally posted by InitialD@Feb 22 2005, 23:38
I wonder what would happen if a parent pass away and his/her children refuse to attend or take part due to difference of religion??

Well nobody said anything about forgetting your own culture or race.

But anyway to address your question, well as Christians you must realise 1 important fact. Men on earth can only kill you at the worst, but your father in heaven has the power to kill you and then send you to hell after that. So who would you rather disrespect? After all, HE created you in the first place.

Think abt that.

 

[satria_95]

cyclonite,
You're my friend and with all due respect, you seem "debative", dude. Chill out. We're not here to address anybody's question or anything of that sort but rather sharing of opinion where we can broaden our understandings of religious topics.
I've seen the down sides of certain religions and to be honest, I've even looked down on one "particular" religion due to it's majority believers being "one kind". However, I've come to think that not everything or everyone is perfect, except for God. Let's just keep an open mind.

Another point for me starting this thread is to read as much views from different people, so that I could see my own weaknesses which I may have over looked, apart from the countless weaknesses that I currently have. And since we're about done with this issue, let's move on to something else which is related to religious topics, which is quality of a person. I'll start on this.

 

[satria_95]

After all those postings, I appreciate every one of them. Moving on, the monk said that no matter what religion a person is, they always teach its believers to have a good heart. "Good heart" here means being respectful, being honest, being helpful, etc etc etc. There's countless qualities that I can think of. I'll start it one by one, with those that I can think of first.

I seem to be impatient and I'm trying to work at that. When I think about it, impatience seems to be the cause of many things like bad temper, rudeness, inconsideration, etc. So what I did was first to remain cool, particularly on the road. First thing I did was to ensure seat belts, latest is after driving a few meters, earliest is even before my car rolls (I think this has got something to do with being pulled over by cops! hahaha). Second thing is to abide by the speed limit (hey, it really helps save petrol when you consistently shift gears at 2k rpm! haha). Third thing is to be considerate and courtesy on the road. Of course, there'll be times where I have to play a little bit of hard ball cos you know, when you signal (many times), the other drivers will just refuse to let you in and drive beside you. So far, I'm doing OK though there's still room for improvement. That's all for now. Will continue again at a later time. :)

 

[nova1]

I think the same argument about whether to hold joss sticks(burning incense) applies to the question of whether Christians can partake offerings to other gods made by non-believers/other faiths. There is no absolute ban but it is dscouraged because the intention is to avoid non-believers having the wrong idea that Christian faith allows it.

In fact, the old testament days(before Jesus) saw sacrifices and worships to the Almighty God(Christian God) in the form of burnt offerings of goats and oxen and burning of incense as a fragance to please God in heaven as a practice of worshipping. This is the same in the Quoran of the Islamic faith as for example, Hari Raya Haji which is celebrated worldwide by all Moslems and on which occasion goats or oxen are slaughtered as an act of sacrifice to Allah , as I read, to retrace the footsteps of prophet Ibrahim(Abraham) who was tested by God to gauge Ibrahim's obedience to God by asking Ibrahim to sacrifice his one and only son to the Almighty but before Ibrahim could plunge the knife in his own son's body, the Almighty stopped him because Ibrahim passed the test of obedience and God instead accepted sacrifice of goats/oxen in place of his son.

The New Testament forgoes the practice of burnt offerings and burning of incense to worship God through the teachings of Jesus Christ by tithing, praying, and worshipping with songs, dances and music.

Thus the act of burning of joss sticks(incense) and eating of offerings are once the practice of Christians but no more now and are discouraged in case others misunderstand the intention. It is avoided for man/woman's sake, not for God's sake because He looks at your heart, not your outward. So, don't worry about whether God will be angry if your heart is not to use joss sticks to worship other gods or spirits but as a mark of respect to the families of the deceased and to calm and comfort the surviving members.

By the way, if you want to pray, do pray for the living, and not the deceased because only the living needs prayer, not the dead. So, don't mistake about it. The deceased is done in this world and his/her spirit is back to God awaiting judgement. No amount of prayer for the deceased would change the judgement of God for God only makes judgement based on man's/woman's living days in this world.