Despite recent conflicts between religions in parts of Asia, the nation's religious leaders and academics still believe that religion can serve as a uniting force in Asia if its adherents and leaders better communicate with each other.
"Some people claimed the 21st century would be an age of cultural conflicts. Above all, what we are seeing is conflict between religions," said Alexander Chen (
"Recently, we have seen such events as the kidnapping of South Korean Christian missionaries in Afghanistan, the continuous conflicts between Muslims and Hindus in India, and the conflict between Buddhists and Muslims in southern Thailand," Chen said. "We therefore ask the question: Is religion a uniting or dividing force in Asia?"
Before responding to the question, Lu Chun-yi (
"Many of the conflicts cited have very complicated political and economic backgrounds," Lu said. "Those who are regarded by Western countries as terrorists are not necessarily terrorists."
"We have devoted ourselves to humanitarian action across the country ... and we have worked well with Catholics and Buddhists in caring for disadvantaged people," Lu said of the Presbyterian Church.
Haj Dawood Ni (
"We Muslims in Taiwan are never a majority," Ni said. "I grew up side by side with people of other religions and we all tolerate and respect each other."
"We don't see Christians -- or believers of any other religion -- as enemies. We simply aren't hostile to them and don't feel any hostility from other religions in this country," he said.
On the other hand, Benoit Vermander, a Catholic priest and chief editor of the institute's Renlai Magazine, said that "a religion must be self-critical so that its members can see beyond the boundaries of religion and country" to promote the greater good.
"Working with other religions doesn't mean giving up one's own traditions," Vermander said. "Religions in Asia can certainly be a force of reform for the continent."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching