How I perceive Religion

Everyone unconsciously believe that there is an omnipotent power that create universe and rule the time. Scientist called it 'physical properties of Universe to create themselves' (Stephen Hawking), ignorant called it destiny, and religious people define it God. All of them only refer to one power, it just the matter of perception. Religious people define their fear to natural power as God's power to create order in society, to persuade people to do kindness. If there's only one power that called God, Why there are so many religions existed now?

Thousands years back then, many people try to interpret That power to give tangible definition of value that "God wanted to say". Muhammad define that value as Islam, Jesus define it as Christian, Siddhartha Gautama define it as Buddhist and other figures define it as their own interpretation of God. They claim God has spoken to them, and order human to be good to each other. Even inside one religion, there's different perspective and apart into several specific groups. Islam has Sunni, Syiah, Wahabi, Suffi, Salaf and other countless grous even Ahmadiyah or LDII. Christian has Catholic, Protestant, Evangelist, etc. Why they are has different groups? because hundred years ago they followed interpretation of their own leaders about right and wrong concept. What i'm trying to say? I just said that actually religion and ritual that we believe in right now was just how our ancestor interpret 'what God want' and 'the right ritual'. When someone try to giving new paradigm or interpretation about God today, they'll labeled as 'Kafir' or 'Satanic religion' even the difference justin the matter of time, past was true and present is wrong.

I actually don't want to justify Ahmadiyah existence nor other 'new religion', but what I'm trying to say is do they do a crime? do they defile your religion? How? Or you have defile your own religion by killing those 'satanic people'? I don't understand how people could end their relationship with their siblings who have changed their religion but justifying murdering of 'kafir' who didn't even lay a tip of finger to them.

Basically Religion teach 2 things :

1. Maintaining individual relationship to God.

according to my explanation before, People have different way to feel close to God. some people feel it in Shalat, some people feel it in Singing, the other feel it in meditation. Everyone has personal way to feel close to God with their own Way. We shouldn't judge other's ritual because it is personal as long as it isn't violate other's right. Your relationship to God won't be distracted by other's ritual, because God and you have personal channel.

2. Maintaining inter-human relationship.

This thing might have been abandoned by some extremist people. Your religion might be everything, but you shouldn't backlash your own religion value. For Moslem in Indonesia, I wanna ask: Have you do what Muhammad do in his era? I don't ask what he did as a leader, but I ask what he did as a human. He didn't attack Jews before he have been attacked. He is defensive person who know war is only last resort. As a leader he lived in harmony society. In his society there was Jews and Christian. Those religion weren't forced to revert their religion to Islam. They also allowed to have their own house of worship. But now, people have wrong focus. Try to make their religion as the most superior one. They want to have more followers for political reason: to dominate the other.

What they called "care" is when they try to stop other people action that's not suitable with their value, to stop 'kafir' thingy on their own opinion. But don't you think those "care" resulted in conflict? Look how people that claim they are right murdering 'kafir people' as if they are not human? look how FPI burns everything to stop maksiat thingy?

They are just too scare of they can't hold their value anymore. because those value isn't really well internalized by themselves.

I choose Islam because i think personally it is true. I pray to my own God and try to maintain relationship to other human with humane way. If you have different paradigm, just try to tolerate the others

- Random thought -

Moonzher : Gap antara SMA dan perguruan tinggi

jujur saya merasa malu jika ada yg bilang bahwa moonzher adalah sekolah yg bagus dari segi akademis. apa parameter suatu SMA bisa dikatakan bagus? Nilai UN? dengan contekan nilai bisa melejit. atau mereka yg belajar sendiri?

piala yg didapatkan? apakah sekolah memiliki kontribusi yg cukup dalam pembinaannya. apakah pembinaan olimpiade dan ekskul lainnya merupakan kontribusi yg signifikan dalam sekolah?

ataukah seberapa banyak lulusan yg masuk perguruan negri ternama? tujuan sekolah hanyalah sampai UN saja, tidak ada pembinaan khusus u/ tes perguruan tinggi.

SMA yg bagus adalah sekolah yg memberikan modal bagi siswanya dalam melanjutkan pendidikan di perguruan tinggi. Modal itu merupakan konsep dasar dalam tiap pelajarannya.KONSEP DASAR adalah ilmu yg seharusnya didapatkan di SMA. hal yg terjadi, hanyalah guru melemparkan rumus dan hal2 praktis bukannya membahas hal paling dasar yaitu konsep awal mula dan fenomena sehingga dapat dirumuskan sehingga kita dapat learnig by thinking. dengan sedikit logika, rumus dapat ditemukan tanpa harus menghapal. Cara mengajar para guru SMA pada saat ini terlalu terfokus pada UN, selesaikan masalah dengan cepat yg penting soal selesai. ada seorang guru yg berkoar bahwa ia mengajarkan konsep, tetapi malah ia menjelaskan prakteknya saja.atau si guru menyuruh siswa yg membaca sendiri dan menerangkan ke teman2nya secara bergiliran, padahal cara ini menyebabkan si siswa akan membual apa yg ada di buku tanpa ada inti pelajaran yg masuk ke otak, hanya "membodohi" si guru agar ia dapat nilai dan semua selesai karena tidak ada fasilitas bertanya kepada guru sebelum ia maju. ada pula guru yg konservatif dan merasa dirinya benar walaupun ada buku yg menjelaskan sesuatu yg berbeda, tidak ada pikiran terbuka untuk berdiskusi dan meluruskan pendapat yg berbeda.Yang paling bermasalah apabila si guru hanya menjelaskan sama persis seperti apa yg ada di buku sehingga ada atau tidak ada guru sama saja.

Ketika kuliah, terutama di TPB ITB akan terlihat (secara umum) mana sekolah yg bagus dan yg tidak. Tujuan TPB sendiri adalah menyetarakan kemampuan dasar dan konsep dasar yg didapat dari Sekolah yg berbeda2. ITB menyadari, basic concept yg didapat tiap sekolah berbeda2, sehingga perlu penyetaraan seperti sistem "college" di luar negeri sehingga diharapkan konsep yg didapatkan berada pd level yg sama. Pada saat ini, konsep dasar anak dari moonzher pada umumnya akan terlihat pada level bawah. buruknya nilai akibat dari shock karena banyak konsep yg belum didapatkan. misalnya pd saat SMA terbiasa mengerjakan soal asal hajar saja dg rumus yg banyak, tanpa meninjau syarat penggunaan rumus tersebut.atau misalnya pd saat sma hanya mempelajari materi UN saja, sehingga soal typical UN bisa dikerjakan namun dasar dari konsep itu belum didapatkan sehingga lebih banyak materi yg harus dipelajari.soal2 yg ada di TPB kebanyakan adalah soal yg menguji konsep dan sejauh mana kita mengerti tentang suatu permasalahan. Dibandingkan secara umum dengan lulusan sekolah yg benar2 bagus, kualitas lulusan mzr masih pada strata rendahan.

Mungkin benar apa kata beberapa dosen yg mengeluhkan tentang sistem pengajaran di SMA, banyak guru yg sebenarnya juga belum mengerti sepenuhnya tentang suatu materi, sehingga pada akhirnya penjelasan kepada murid kurang mumpuni, pada ujungnya si murid mengalami kesulitan belajar di universitasnya. Yang saya lihat pada saat ini, Guru terlalu dibebani oleh banya tetek bengek administrasi RSBI lah, ISO lah, yg membebani guru sehingga TUGAS UTAMA guru terlupakan. tetek bengek itu berhasil menghipnotis orang tua calon siswa yg berpikiran sempit agar memasukan anak nya ke sekolah ini tanpa ada konsiderasi lainnya. Guru juga di bebani dengan pelajaran berbahasa Inggris supaya bisa mengajar bilingual di kelas. secara kasarnya, wong ngajar dlm bahasa Indonesia aja susah dimengerti, apalagi dengan bahasa Inggris? Sekolah memang kekurangan ahli di bidangnya masing2!

Sekolahpun berusaha bersolek dg membuat siswa nya sibuk dengan jam belajar yg lama dan materi yg padat namun minus konsep karena hanya dibahas dipermukaan saja saking banyak nya materi yg ada. Tugas yg banyak dan menumpuk juga bukan solusi memperbaiki kualitas dari lulusan, Kuantitas telah melebihi kualitas. pada akhirnya hanya lelah yg didapat siswa. mungkin mengerjakan ulangan SMA bukanlah hal yg terlalu berat, namun pada saat kuliah semua akan terasa sangat berat dan menyiksa.

Janganlah mencoba membandingkan mzr dg SMA seperti SMA 8 jkt, SMA 3 bdg atau SMA 81. terlalu jauh kasta kita dari mereka.janganlah melihat kebawah, karena membuat kita akan sombong tak berdasar. ibarat orang kaya, kita cuma orang kaya di kampung. Janganlah bangga karena 'nebeng' Si pemenang olimpiade Kimia, Fisika, Paskibraka, atau Bahasa Inggris. karena mereka berusaha sendiri.