Friday, July 27, 2007

A report on an outpost of religion: South Korea.

Koreans are a religious people. Most of them follow Buddhism, Confucianism or Christianity. Many follow all three.

Give or take, there are 300,000 shamans in South Korea. They pray to 10,000 Gods. They pray to Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Park Chung-Hee.

Some have been known to worship General Douglas MacArthur, praying before his statue in the city of Inchon.

Shamans have channelled MacArthur, donning sunglasses and puffing on a pipe.

I know, you're thinking "Those nutty foreigners." So am I. But let's be fair. When the Old Testament God carved the ten commandments, He said "I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods before me." So He didn't say he was the only God, just that He was the big one.

And if there can be one God, then why not 10,000? And why can't one of them be General MacArthur?

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