There is a certain issue in Malaysia regarding the conversion of Lina Joy (formerly Azlina Jailani) from Islam to Christianity and while I have no qualms about the sentiment of anyone practicing their right to convert from one belief to another expecially in a country where the belief of religion is monitored and regulated as well as picked upon by its people. I do expect hardcore believers and fundementalist to come out of the woodwork on this one because to them something like this is just all sort of wrong on so many levels.

What I don't expect is people like Cheng Sim here to write comments like this or this. For those of you who couldn't be stuffed in loading the page to read those comments, here's the gist of it.

i always have something against the stance that has been made by Lina Joy. yeah, sure she deny the fact that she’s a muslim. what are the odds that in the years to come, she’ll go: “oh, i wanna be a buddhist!”. although she wishes to convert to christianity (my religion), i don’t think i will accept her if she ever prays in my church. besides, i think she’s doing this because she wishes to eat pork or basically thinks its tiring to bersolat five times a day. Lina Joy is a sheer disgrace to islam and christianity (in my opinion)

I'm actually taking several deep breaths because I am still contemplating how is it possible for someone to take a complete leave of absence of their common sense to write something like that. I don't even know what to call that sort of stupidity. Prejudice? Immaturity? Insanity? What would possess a person to express their opinions in that way?

As far as I'm concerned, Lina Joy's conversion to another belief is her personal choice. It's a belief, you can't force anyone to believe what you believe. You can't make anyone stay on something they have other ideas on even if they were born into it. You just can't do such a thing. Religion has and will always be between you and whatever form of God you worship. To force onto others your own self-righteous belief of the divine when they already have something to believe in is like mental rape.

But come on, to disregard let alone insult someone's new found belief into your own because the law stated they were in another religion in the first place is just taking absurdity to a whole new level. I wouldn't claim to know what she what was going through her mind when she decided to switch her name and her religion, so I'm not going to. But I would claim to at least understand that just because you're born into the religion, doesn't mean you're knee deep in it. It doesn't mean you're going to be a fevered worshiper of your God. It doesn't mean you can hold it against them, the actions of the rest of the religious believers.

To think that people would change their belief because they think the other religion is fun or your own has too many limitations plays to show how narrow your worldview is. No one…not even those who barely practise their own religion would be willing to cause a stir like that simply because "she wants out because she wants to eat pork and she's lazy to pray 5 times a day". A person has got to be living in a cave or born yesterday to actually believe in something like that If they really wanted to do it anyway, they would have done it without such a fuss, such as having your Islam status removed from your national ID card. People tend to take the easier way out, going through the lengths of actually changing your name and facing the complications of conversion isn't exactly what you call easy.

Deciding to openly apostate from being a Muslim in our country is a drastic measure for a drastic situation. A person has got to have a shitload of courage and support to face a proverbial firing squad and a beeline of social backlash. Comments from people like that does not help one bit but shows how dangerous such biasness can be. It reflects a person's immaturity to grasp the sheer scope of the situation because religion for them is something they take for granted. It's easier to walk along the path you're dealt with. It's harder to accept and to be accepted in something outside your own safety net. For that I respect Lina Joy, not for the fact she choose to officially declare a new belief, but for the conviction and courage to see it through.

The fact that people would say or even agree to saying something like that just shows the sheer bigotry and hypocrisy that makes them who they are, people who have a limited scope on what they can see based on what they believe or what they experience. I remember something I read in the Bible once about how we should "Love thy neighbour". I think she must have missed out on that one. Who knows? Maybe she isn't Christian enough.