An important article I once wrote, resent for April 2012′s issue of ‘For You Information’ magazine - The Importance of Inter-Religious...

In the movie ‘Tokyo Sonata’, there is dissonance, hidden tension in a family, between every member of the family… that drives them apart. Everyone wanders off for a while, going through extremes to seek freedom, which are misadventures that awaken them on the value of their...

At an inter-religious forum, after representatives of several religions introduced the gise of their ideology, someone in the audience hinted that it seems that Hinduism is the only one that accepts all religions as various paths to God, and that it seems superior in that aspect. This is a...

Different from the run-of-the-mill concept of there being a supreme and extreme good guy versus a supreme and extreme bad guy, who keep the forces of good and evil in balance, the ‘Night Watch’ and ‘Day Watch’ movies suggest that there is a powerful leader of...

Q: It doesn’t matter whether one calls oneself a Buddhist when one is practising the Buddha’s way. Often, we are too attached to a label and think our label is better than another’s. We should continue to spread the good teachings of the truth, but we don’t have to make...

What happens if a religion insists that it is the only true religion? How is inter-religious harmony to be upheld between this religion and others? (Yes, some still practise such religions.) Agree to disagree, yes. But what if this itself is disagreeable to that religion, that even endorses...

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While chatting with friends on the ‘Agree to Disagree: Conversations on Conversion’ project (http://conversion.buddhists.sg) much earlier, I suggested doing something more handy and easy to use, for more swift dissuasion against the ways of manic street preachers. Below is the...

In Singapore, those eager to slam other faiths publicly and unfairly, regardless of inter-religious harmony, in order to proselytise their own religion can no longer readily do so due recent repeated government-alerted incidents (e.g. Rony Tan and Mark Ng) – unless they are out of their...

In Digha Nikaya (I,164), the Buddha taught, ‘Those things about which there is no agreement, let us put aside. Those things about which there is agreement, let the wise bring up, discuss and examine.’ Does this mean we should religiously avoid differences to prevent conflict? The...

Below is an interesting excerpt, followed by personal comments on them: From ‘“Muscular” versus “Liberal” Secularism and the Religious Fundamentalist Challenge in Singapore’ by Kumar Ramakrishna (S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore) 10 June 2010...

Jehu [King of Israel] assembled all the people and said to them, “Ahab worshiped Baal a little; Jehu will worship him with great devotion. So now, bring to me all the prophets of Baal, as well as all his servants and priests. None of them must be absent, for I am offering a great...

Something I helped to answer for the press: Q: Is current interfaith work too skewed towards looking for commonalities? Is it disrespectful to religions which are different, and might lead to deeper ignorance? Should the focus only be on common ground? Where does Singapore’s efforts stand...

From http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=22,8959,0,0,1,0 & http://kmspks.org/download/clear_misconceptions.pdf (slightly different version) [This is a concise version of the article at http://tinyurl.com/ronytan] With regards to the article at...

[A concise version of this article is available at http://tinyurl.com/ronytan2] Though Pastor Rony Tan has already apologised for his gross misrepresentations of Buddhism in his video interviews, many of these misrepresentations remain unclarified in a point by point manner. As the videos...

From http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DharmaNews/message/5373 : This mail is to inform Buddhists of two serious cases of Buddhism being misrepresented in the context of Singapore, and what you can do about it. Please be assured that the featured  persons and their confused views in the...

Photo: A Catholic Sister reading the Declaration of Religious Harmony: “We, the people in Singapore, declare that religious harmony is vital for peace, progress and prosperity in our multi-racial and multi-religious Nation. We resolve to strengthen religious harmony through mutual...

Beliefs of a ‘Non-Believer’ http://buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=8,7674,0,0,1,0 I watched the live telecast of Obama’s inaugural presidential speech last night. It was largely a speech on inclusion; not exclusion, though one part seems to accidentally segregate instead of...