Religious Touting in Singapore

23 June 2008

On the way back home, I took a cab. The ride was smooth and comfortable until I reached my place. After paying for ride, the taxi driver handed me a pamphlet.

Darn! Without looking at the pamphlet, I already knew it could only be a religious one. And indeed it was. It was an article distributed by The Glory Presbyterian Church for the Singapore Every Home Crusade Co. Ltd.

Singapore is a secular state. It is multiracial and multireligious. Everyone has his or her own freedom and space to practise religion. Nevertheless, I have had encountered more than a handful of religious touting incidents. I shall attempt to recall some interesting ones:

• On one occasion, a taxi driver started a religious preaching once I boarded his taxi. He started to criticise other religions and pointed that his religion was the only true religion. My family and I were utterly annoyed but kept silent as he rattled on.
  
• When I was younger, I frequently bumped into an auntie who would shove a religious pamphlet to me and then refused to let me go away.
  
• Even on my first day in school at NUS, I encountered a surveyor who asked questions leading to religion and then introduced himself as a member of a religious society of the campus. Throughout the first few weeks of school, he kept calling to engage me with activities organised by the society.
  
• In the train, I encountered some teenagers who were moving around the region to share about their religion. They picked up a conversation with me and then handed me pamphlets and postcards of their organisation.
  
• I ever heard from a friend that there was someone at his door, telling him that he had a demon in his house when that person saw his alter.

In my view, it matters not which religion is being touted. What matters is the act of touting. I guess no one really enjoys being commercially touted, being shoved a facial treatment advert and getting your face scrutinised and commented by the sales personnels. Religious touting is also not enjoyable. Every religious buildings can have its own banners and posters spreading its message to the public, but no more than that.

The choice of religion should rest upon the hands of the individual. All religions are for the good of mankind. For world peace to be even a least bit realistic, everyone has to commit their part to accomodate religious differences...