INTER-RELIGIOUS FORUM

I've attended the inter-religious forum on Cohabitation and Premarital Sex: Is Religion Outdated? yesterday juz to check out how's the forum like... I went in expecting some understand-each-other's-religion kinda thingie but wat was discussed in the short 2 hours was the most intellectually-stimulating experience I've ever had in my entire life!!!

I thought that the speakers are probably fundamentalist and would only discussed the issue on a religious perspective, but it turns out that I'm DEAD wrong. The 3 speakers (A Muslim, a Catholic, and a Buddhist) are truly intellectuals!!! Almost every imaginable perspectives are touched, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, medicine, history, culture etc!!! And although their theology and belief are different from mine, there's still plenty of truth in their words, and I know I've learned quite some stuff from that short 2 hours... Which is simply amazing!

However, in my opinion, the speakers did not stress enough on marriage itself. When one talks about cohabitation and premarital sex, marriage must be discussed in greater detail, since it's the opposite of those. To me, marriage is simple the most beautiful institution existed in our world. It is a sacred binding, whereby a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24). And sex is a gift from God to wedded couples, which binds not the couple not juz physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spirtually as well.

Yet, sadly, humanity has perverted this beautiful gift and expression into an unimaginable state of degrading and disgusting acts. Instead of the binding of two person into one (figuratively), we have multiple random partners and even within the same sexes. Worse, there's incest and bestiality, not to mention adultery. Instead of strengthening the bond between a husband and a wife, we have misuse sex as a mean of acquiring plaesure, without any commitment nor any thoughts on the consequences.

Some statistics about this tragic trend were mentioned during the forum, and it was truly shocking. Do u know that there are around 55000 abortion every day in the world? Imagine how many lives are lost each day due to our selfish nature. Is a few hours of worldly pleasure worth a human life? Heck NO!!! Also, interestingly, the mortality rate of ppl engaging in premarital sex is unusually high compared to married couples. For female, it's 50% higher, and for guys... 250% higher!!! One of the possible reason behind this given by the speakers is that no matter how sexually-oriented ppl engaged in premarital sex, there's bound to be certain emotional elements invested into it. When a man (or a woman) has random sex with many partners, one day he (or she) will certainly filled with so much regret that will slowly kills them.

Well, there's still plenty for me to talk about in this issue, but I think it's WAY past my study time now... So I'll juz end here. The IRF has been unexpectedly good, and I hope more of such forum will be organized in the future, and more efforts will be done to promote it to the staffs and students!!!