Losing my religion

Re: “Keep religion in community”, (PostBag, Oct 7).

In response to David Brown’s letter, I should point out that I have spent the great majority of my life among people who prac- tise religions other than the one to which I was born into. As a Christian who never took to the faith, I have lived and worked in Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim countries where I have witnessed far more “religious intolerance” than I display.

That intolerance leads to the events seen recently in Myanmar where the minority have been severely persecuted by the majority due to being the “wrong religion”.

Supposed Christians argue among themselves due to different beliefs, Muslims fight each other over differences in their sects’ origins and the clashes over religion have caused several wars and far too many deaths to ignore.

I am quite happy for individuals to believe in whatever book of stories they choose and to mumble intonations to the sky if that is their preference but feel that once they congregate in numbers and amass in large crowds they start to exhibit the behaviour seen by football fans.

Once a government sides with one ideology the citizens belonging to another can expect to be subjected to a certain amount of criticism and even hate.

My intolerance to religion is that I do not enjoy seeing one group being persecuted by another, whereas when a large religious group shows intolerance it is often manifested with armed violence, torture, rape and mass murder.

When the signs of your religion are openly and proudly displayed in public they immediately set up a reaction in another group which is why I quite simply say “keep your religion in your own home, don’t go out and aggravate others”. There is far more to good people than just religion. LUNGSTIB