Nine Official Religions - amendment

This is an amendment. Made to a previous blog entry.

Reborn rightly pointed out that I got the sequence wrong. I wasn't sure in the first place. Thanks for the clarification.


Upon closer inspection......all is revealed! The tab-collar clergy shirt!

So the sequence should be Zoroastrian Sikh Muslim Christian Taoist Buddhist Bahá'í Jewish Hindu

And their corresponding religion would be Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, Bahá'í Faith, Judaism and Hinduism.

There are probably others, like Confucianism, Jehovah Witness, Unification Church not represented. heh...heh heh..
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The other day we were talking about Jehovah Witness before we slept. We had came back the night before cause we had sailing the next morning. Turns out Jehovah Witnesses(??) have more limitations then we had thought. Not only can they not bear arms, they can't swear allegiance to State, sing Majulah Singapura (or any national anthem for that matter) and a slew of other stuff. And the rumour that some of them were put into detention barracks for refusing to go through National Service was true. Sing a Malay song and recite a few lines in English every morning in exchange for freedom from Mowbray Camp. Not bad a deal....but they believe strongly in it I guess...So it wasn't as simple as one of my colleagues saying that they could go through NS but serve in Civil Defence Force (SCDF). Hey, I don't know if Jehovah Witness is wrong or right. The Government dictates that Jehovah Witness and Unification Church are illegal. So we won't see any mass weddings anytime soon. There was a mass wedding incidentally last year 8 May 2004 organised by the SDS at the Esplanade but that was part of the Romancing Singapore drive/campaign.

I subscribe to the social and historical observation that all religions gotta start from a cult-like status. Imagine years ago when everybody was praying to a particular stone or tree then some wise ape decided to pray to the sun. Sure kena hantam. No offense to sun-worshippers at East Coast, Tanjong Beach, Fort Road Beach, Siloso Beach etc etc... Malays in this region must have kept dogs and ate wild boar many years ago and when the Arabs brought Islam to this region, they tend not to keep dogs as pets and for religious reasons, avoid pork. It must have been hard for the initial crossovers. It's like giving up man's best friend. In return for a higher calling I guess.

I'd better stop talking about religion. Last week after discussing about this....the following sailing was fraught with bad sea state, wet weather, breakfast that won't stay in stomach and getting to know the toilet bowl onboard far too well....

We got physically close during the last sailling.