Religions - Radical Christians, Radical Muslims. Doing the Impossible

Ricemedia published an online article about Kingdom Invasion Conference 2018. This is a Christian Conference organised by Cornerstone Community Church, and attended by about 2000 people. Here's an excerpt from that article:

I’m at Kingdom Invasion, a mass evangelism conference that is in its sixth year running. On its website, the event is described as a platform to activate believers and churches to “take up the Lord’s mandate” to “bring the Kingdom of God into our world”. The conference also “acts as a catalyst for the prophetic destiny of the nations around Singapore”, fulfilling the prophecy of prominent American evangelist Billy Graham that Singapore would become the “Antioch of Asia” – the theme of this year’s conference.

The speaker implied that there is an urgency to curb "Muslim/Islam" during his sermon.

The Ricemedia article author asked MHA/Police how the speaker was allowed in.

The Ministry of Home Affairs and police did not respond to my queries on why Engle was granted a permit to speak in Singapore, given his notorious background. They also did not clarify what the rules for speaking at religious events were.

As a result, the Police and MHA are now investigating.


And of course the comments came.

One Logical Atheist (LA) pointed out that the monotheistic Abrahamic exclusive religions have radicalism inherent in their basic tenets. If your religion states that your religion follows the One True God, then all other gods must be false gods. LA asserts that Abrahamic or monotheistic religions do the most damage.

Or put it another way, empirically Islam and Christianity are the religions most often radicalised. Of course, these are the two largest religions (by followers), so that may be a confounding factor.

In any case, others objected to LA's characterisation of religion.

He defended his position, but they were arguing at cross purposes.

Then this reply, in agreement with his logic:

Logically, religions that dogmatically states that their god is the "One True God" therefore implies that all other gods are false. And when one infuses fundamentalism into these exclusive religion, one invariably is led to radical interpretations that is anathema to culturally and religiously diverse societies like ours.

Logically.

But religion transcends logic. Or "defies logic" if you want to be critical.

The point is being inflexibly logical is as bad as being dogmatically rigid. At least for social issues in a multi-faith diverse society such as ours.

The point I get from some of the others who disagreed with you is that that is not their experience in what you succinctly call "the managed overall social environment" of Singapore.

The problem of "one true god" religions, if we want to call it that, is that logically, they are incompatible and cannot co-exists. Singapore has done the impossible. And that makes us mighty. (Firefly quote/paraphrase.)

Applying logic inflexibly is as bad as pursuing dogma/tenet rigidly and radically. The Radical "Christian" wants to eliminate Islam. The Radical "Muslim" wants to eradicate Christianity. And the Militant Logical "Atheist" argues for the abolishment of ALL monotheistic religions?

Symmetry.

Thesis. Anti-thesis.

Singapore's "impossible" solution is a synthesis. That transcends logic.

And that makes us mighty.