I’m writing this op piece in response to video of the conflict which arisen from the burning of incense and hell note from an agnostic/secularist point of view.
First, I would like to declare that I do not represent the view of the Atheist/Agnostic/Humanist/Secularist community of Singapore and am only voicing my own opinion. I too was once a theist until I shed my religious glasses and began to see the world in its reality.
Singapore has always been a pluralistic country with people of multiple faiths trying to balance tolerance while maintaining their own religious convictions. In order to maintain harmony, we have respected each other’s religious/cultural rights as long as it doesn't harm or infringe the rights of anyone else.
In the case of the video, it is clear that the burning of incense has negatively affected someone else. Burning those incense and hell notes close to a housing estate will cause a lot of smoke to enter the neighbouring homes. It disturbs the people who don’t want to inhale carbon monoxide, soot and other poisonous chemicals caused by the burning process and, as the person in the video said, it is extremely harmful to those who have some form of repertory illness like asthma. We draw the line when a religious practice harms someone else and this clearly does so.
Many in the comments have express their views that such practices should be done further away from housing estates and I totally agree. It should never be offensive to voice our concerns on anything, not even religion. In any other forms, the practice of burning anything in housing estate is illegal. Heck, we've complained so much about cigarette which definitely creates less smoke than these mass burning. A certain MP even creates a “smoking zone” to isolate smokers from the rest of the world. But for some reason, we respect these burnings because some people believe this action will teleport currencies into another dimension. In short, if you want to burn you can do it but please do it somewhere far from the housing estate where it doesn't harm anyone.
But the real funny part comes in the comment section which have reached 774 comments last I checked. While there are those who try to preach harmony, some has devolve into bashing other practices including the Malay wedding ceremony, Muslim prayers parking, Chinese funerals and one even talk about circumcision for some reason. To pick apart each one of these points will be too time consuming but I just wanna say that it is amusing to see you guys fight on whose version of the invisible man from another dimension is correct.
In the end, I just want to point out that if your religious practice harms someone else or infringes the rights of someone else, your religious practice is not to be respected.
Some agnostic guy
TRS Contributor