by Joshua Wu Kai-Ming | May 14, 2014 | Misc
A reply to:
Ganti Tuhan dengan Allah strategik Kristianisasi kata NGO
The Secretary-General of Pertubuhan Muafakat Sejahtera Masyarakat Malaysia, Mr Abdul Karim Omar claims that the use of the word “Allah” to replace God in the Bible was/is part of the Christianisation strategy. The statement cannot be further from the truth.
Firstly, he clearly did not do his research or he would’ve found out that in the Bible, there are many verses using the phrase ‘Lord God’. If the word Allah (currently used as the translation for “God” in the Al-Kitab), is replaced by Tuhan, the verses would translate Lord God as “Tuhan Tuhan”
That is a fundamental doctrinal error as it gives the impression that Christians worship more than one God. Furthermore, the word Lord and the word God carries different meanings. It would be inaccurate to use one word (i.e. Tuhan) to replace both the words “Lord” and “God”
Furthermore, the use of the word “Allah” is an integral part of the Christian faith, especially those in Sabah & Sarawak. Christians there have been praying and worshipping using the word “Allah” for hundreds of years. This is evidenced by “a century old Catholic prayer book” in BM
Article 3(1) allows religions other than Islam to be practiced in peace and harmony. If Christians in Sabah and Sarawak have been using it for more than 100 years in peace and harmony, who are we to say it is not an integral part of their faith? Who are we to infringed their freedom to practice their religion? (Article 11 Federal Constitution). It’s pretty evident that the whole fight is just so that the Christians in Sabah and Sarawak can maintain their current practice and is NOT meant to proselytize to the muslims
What is more epic is that even PAS agrees that non-muslims can use the word “Allah” provided it is not misused
Moreover, the secretary general of Muafakat’s statements that, “komuniti Kristian evangelis yang cuba memurtadkan komuniti Islam mula menggunakan kaedah “Strategi Kontekstualisasi” untuk lebih mendekati komuniti Melayu Islam melalui budaya dan adat resam mereka.” is not supported by any hard evidence. Propagation of any religion to Muslims is an offence. If Muafakat has any evidence at all to corroborate their claim, I suggest you make a police report and let the authorities handle it
Even the Al-Kitab’s which were seized by JAIS were meant to be for the BM speaking Christians, be it in Semenanjung Malaysia or in Sabah or Sarawak. The Bibles are NOT used to confuse Muslims and convert them (as claimed by certain parties)
As to Mr Abdul Karim Omar’s statement, “sekiranya trend memurtadkan umat Islam berkembang, menjelang tahun 2100, penganut Islam
dan Kristian akan berada dalam sekitar 40%, manakala lain-lain kaum berada pada paras 20%,” I answered it quite extensively in one of my earlier articles
Mengambil Korea Selatan sebagai contoh, Karim berkata pada 1905 jumlah Kristian hanya 0.5% daripada populasi negara itu. Tetapi akibat perkembangan pesatnya pada tahun 1970an dan 1980an, ia meningkat kepada 30% pada 2005, katanya.
“Ia berlaku di Korea Selatan dan boleh berlaku di sini,” tambahnya
He clearly did not take into account that it is a crime to proselytize to Muslims in Malaysia. *facepalm* A failure to look into the social setting will lead to such skewed views
In conclusion, please stop spreading all these false anti-christian sentiments. Unless of course you want to tear our nation apart and cause our forefathers to roll in their graves out of disappointment and disgust
by Joshua Wu Kai-Ming | May 12, 2014 | Misc
A reply to:
Implement hudud for all, not only Muslims, says ISMA
As if the entire hoo-ha about hudud wasn’t enough, ISMA went on to say that it should be applied to non-muslims as well. That stirred a lot of unrest among non-muslims in Malaysia and many voiced their displeasure. Especially on social media
Of course ISMA is entitled to voice their opinion (enshrined in Article 10 of the Federal Constitution). But their opinion(s) should be made with respect to the highest law of our land or it would reflect badly on their intellect. Plato once said, “Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something”
Article 11 of the Fedeal Constitution guarantees the freedom of religion. Article 11(1) states that “Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion and subject to Clause (4), to propagate it”
If hudud were to be imposed on non-muslims, the right of non-muslims to practice their religion would be infringed. How? While most churches use non-alcoholic beverages when partaking the Holy Communion , some Malaysian churches do use wine to represent the blood of Jesus
Hudud covers an offence called syarbul khamr (a.k.a drinking alcohol). Will Christians then be flogged 80 times for observing a practice considered holy to them? Christians would no longer be able to freely practice their religion, hence infringing Article 11
Also, under hudud, only free, adult Muslim men are eligible to testify. The status of a women’s testimony under hudud is an unresolved issue. Some Muslim scholars believe the testimonies of TWO women equate to the testimony of ONE man
What then about testimonies of non-muslims? (presuming they are subjected to hudud). Does it count for anything?
According to an article by Sp4n4r ,
“Non muslims are allowed to testify in Hudud cases. The only difference is that their testimony will not be sufficient
for a hudud conviction and will only lead to a Takzir conviction
However, in cases where there is an absence of any muslim witnesses, the testimony of a non muslim will be
accpeted for a hudud conviction with two conditions:
A) He/she has never been proven to be a liar
B) He/she is a believer of a religion and practices his/her religion”
However, Muslim women activist and
filmmaker Norhayati Kaprawi , takes a different stance and says “Based on PAS’s current hudud enactments in Kelantan and Terengganu, only Muslim males are eligible to be court witnesses. The testimonies of non-Muslims (and also
Muslim women) are not accepted in PAS’s hudud-style Islamic courts”
Clearly there are A LOT of unresolved issues. Perhaps ISMA should contribute on sorting out the hiccups related to hudud instead of churning out bootless statements such as “hudud should be implemented for all and not only muslims”
by Joshua Wu Kai-Ming | May 9, 2014 | Misc
The article by a NGO which says by 2100 the Christians would outnumber the Muslims in Malaysia
This has to go down as one of the most preposterous articles I have ever read. I am flabbergasted as to how Muafakat even got such statistics
Statistics are only accurate if the research was done properly. In this case, was any research even done?
Mr Abdul Karim Omar rightly pointed out that currently, Christians make up around 10% of the population of Malaysia. Meanwhile, the Muslims form more than 60% of the entire Malaysian population
How is it even possible that by 2100 there will be more Christians than Muslims?
Theory 1: The existing Muslims will convert to Christianity. Oh wait, it’s illegal in Malaysia to propagate any religion to the Muslims. Furthermore, it’s close to impossible to convert out of Islam (in Malaysia at least)
Theory 2: There will be an influx of Christians in Malaysia. Using statistics from IndexMundi, as of July 2013, there were about 2,696,184 Christians and 17,895,549 Muslims (figures rounded up based on a total population of 29,628,392).
Assuming there are 44,827,758 Malaysians by 2100 and the number of believers of other religions do not increase and there is only an influx of Christians, we’re talking about 15,199,365 Christians migrating to Malaysia in 9 decades (the percentage of Christians and Muslims in Malaysia would be exactly 40% as claimed by Mr Abdul Karim Omar). Thats around 168,882 people per year
Seems not a lot? Do take into account that since we achieved independence 56 years ago, there are only 2,696,184 Christians. On average thats about 48,146 new Christians per year.
And still we havent taken into account the fact that the Muslim population as well as the number of believers of other faiths will increase with time. Mind = blown. It’s close to impossible for this scenario to happen
Based on my simple calculations, I can already conclude that it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the situation mentioned by Mr Abdul Karim Omar to happen. Then again, I’d love to see the statistics based on his alleged research. That would definitely help me reach a more accurate conclusion
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