I've taken so much of this shit already...So why do I have to get hit with the biggest and smelliest pile of poop when i'm less than a month away from graduating from this nonsense??? Argh and what's worse is that i could have avoided this shitty schedule and shitting difficult take-home exams and research papers by just choosing another module.
And to think that i chose these modules only partially out of interest and also partially because i thought there'd be easier competition and also LESS WORK like wtf how dumb is that. I wish i'd taken one of those supposedly more USEFUL substantive mods with just some sit-down exam consisting of a hypothetical where i wouldn't even need to know every case in depth. Instead of one exam and maybe one take-home essay, i ended up with a class presentation, 2 semi-research papers, 1 full research paper, and 1 closed-book exam. ALL FOR THE SAME BLOODY NUMBER OF CREDITS.
*Gaah* this is hell; my paper is due at the same bloody time that my Korean oral exam starts like WTF am i gonna get any sleep that night or what. I'm so gonna drink that Ramune if i manage to survive on Tuesday. Someone please remind me in case i forget.
I was thinking about stuff just about 5 minutes ago while in the shower. We're seeing an increasing number of Christians and Catholics in Singapore these days (at least i kinda think so), and in my sleepy daze (i still haven't slept yet) i was thinking about how so many Christians i know feel so strongly about their religion and constantly discuss the Bible with fellow Christians and non-Christians too.
(This post might sound inflammatory, but i make no statement preferring one religion over another. I am proudly Chinese...and agnostic haha)
That got me thinking about my own religious background. I've been brought up (as most ethnic Chinese people are) in a Taoist religion. Or perhaps it is a mix of Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, i'm not entirely sure (personally i think it's Taoist with heavy Buddhist influence...or maybe just "Chinese". Let's just call it Taoist-Buddhist for now). Our family has Taoist-Buddhist funerals, we celebrate Chinese New Year the normal way (buying new clothes, visiting the Geomancer, among many other things), and we have our mooncakes in Mid-Autumn and stuff like that. But if i was asked what my religion is, i'd say that i am Agnostic. If they don't know what that means, i'd say i'm a Freethinker. I wouldn't call myself a Taoist or a Buddhist or a Taoist-Buddhist.
Why is that? Part of it is of course our English-speaking upbringing, perhaps leading to some language barrier between the "followers" and the priests. But i think it is more than that.
To my (very very limited) knowledge, the gist of the practice of my family's Chinese/Taoist/Buddhist religion appears to be the performing of rituals (e.g. offering food, burning hell money, certain other practices) for (mostly unnamed) gods and spirits and ancestors. These rituals are usually for their own rather selfish endeavours, and in return we can ask them to grant us luck - whether with career or the lottery - and good health. When someone in the family passes away, we perform rituals to ensure his/her safe and smooth transition to the afterlife, and at the same time slyly but respectfully ask him/her for lottery numbers. (Oh yah, and i don't even know how or from whom we derive our "luck" to get our wishes granted whenever we have lo hei during CNY.)
So to my mind, one of the big differences between the Taoist-Buddhist belief and Christianity is that Taoism-Buddhism prescribes certain rituals and tasks without really prescribing a holistic moral view. It seems apparent in the BAC reports i am being forced to read. While the Christian and Muslim religions - and even organisations of doctors that are (supposed to be) religiously neutral - argue strongly against things like abortion and the "killing" of embryos for stem cell research, or at least express a strong view on such matters, the Taoist, Buddhist, and Chinese communities don't seem to care either way and usually just support current practice or express utilitarian views and small concerns. They don't seem to be concerned with issues like "when does life start" - which then decides whether embryonic stem cell research "kills" lives, or even whether it is wrong to "kill" for such purposes, although i am sure that they'd never justify the killing of another human being except in very limited circumstances like in self-defence.
Taking this thought further: perhaps, to be more exact, it is not that Taoism-Buddhism does not prescribe holistic moral views, but that mere followers (like my parents) are not taught these views. We don't study any texts, nor do we go for regular "service" and listen to priests/pastors. We don't discuss why we HAVE to do what we do; our parents just tell us what to do, and briefly the purpose of doing such things, but we don't sit down together and debate the correctness of doing such things. And then we do the same thing to our kids. The focus seems to be always on the rituals and practices. Our parents, their parents, the Taoist-Buddhist priests and the Taoist-Buddhist organisations, seem satisfied as long as the rituals and practices are followed correctly and mechanically; we don't have to understand so much. Neither do we need to acquire broad principles from these rituals and apply them to everything that we do in life. At least that is how the religion has applied to me so far.
This focus on only rituals and practices seems to be the reason why Taoist-Buddhist practices have stayed alive even when so many people are jumping to another religion. It allows them to straddle two different religions. I know many Chinese Christians who still celebrate Chinese New Year the usual way. They follow the traditional practices when Chinese New Year or other festivals come rolling by, but ignore them on other days. They do it for fun (or just-in-case), but why bother shaping their lives around it if they don't know/believe how or why it is supposed to work? The obvious issue is then whether merely giving lip service by following rituals and practices is really sufficient to be considered a believer or a follower, and for how long a religious or cultural practice can sustain itself when the underlying rationales for it have been lost to history or lost in translation.
Interestingly, this kinda reminds me a bit of the political climate in Singapore today. It could be that we're all getting better and better educated, so an authoritarian government no longer works. We're demanding more explanations, more transparency, more accountability, just like how we're less satisfied with the Buddhist-Taoist teachings that seemingly don't tell us more than what we need to do. We want a fuller view of politics, and of the afterlife. Both need to move on, and to adapt, or risk becoming irrelevant to those who are not as privileged in receiving information or further teachings.
Well, just some thoughts.
