It is also due to a new, often naive, generation of self-centred Singaporeans who believe that propagating religion can be done in the same way as in the West.

Several months ago, a local businessman named his shop Buddha Duck Rice to the annoyance of the Singapore Buddhist Federation.

This practice will soon end. The Registry of Companies will work out with religious bodies to prevent anyone registering his business under a religious name.

In the new game, anyone can start a website and, under the cover of anonymity, start posting his own church or individual beliefs with scant concern for--and sometimes critical of--other faiths.

Every mainstream religion operates its own website. Last year, a Taoist temple began offering prayers for its devotees on the Net.

The authorities are also concerned with the possibility that religious violence in neighbouring countries may spill over.

Some 36 years after independence, race and religion still pose the biggest potential threat.

There is, however, a difference over the previous generation. Because of better education, the two topics can now be discussed in public. Thirty years ago, it was done only behind closed doors.

Recently, the authorities put an end to a S$2mil media campaign--17 TV and 24 print ads--commissioned by a loose network of more than 120 churches called the Love Singapore Movement.

The objective is to evangelise Singapore.

The series ran for a week in February before the plug was pulled because of religious sensitivities.

"I hate rules. That's why I only made 10 of them," one said. "Bring your umbrella. I might water the plants today," said another.

Other messages, plastered on buses and subway waiting areas, proclaimed in big bold letters: "I'm here." They also went out as T-shirts and postcards.

The ad agency plans to publish a book of quotes from the campaign and has set up a website for the ads.

Another innovation is a short messaging system, or SMS push, that will blitz messages to mobile-phone users who subscribe to the service, who can then forward them to others.

Sent out on Sunday morning, one message will ask: "Are you coming over to my place later?"

Earlier this year, a group of Falungong members publicly demonstrated in Singapore against alleged persecution in China, the first time by a sect in years.

Dressed in his saffron robe, Venerable Shi Ming Yi, 39, told a reporter that he was approached by a group of youths from another faith at Raffles City.

Despite his shaven head, his flowing gown and beads, they told him they wanted him to join them in a prayer. Others are known to approach Malay families in housing estates.

It was because of a spate of aggressive preaching that the government enacted a Religious Harmony Act in 1990 to put an end to two main dangers.

Firstly, it was aimed at keeping religion out of politics, and secondly, preventing religious criticism of other faiths.

Since then, police and Internal Security Department officers had to call up and warn religious leaders in three cases to stop or else the Act would be used against them, Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng recently said.

On the eve of the 1991 general election, one religious leader urged Muslims to vote for Muslim candidates with deep religious beliefs.

A pastor was warned in 1992 because he had used his church publications and the pulpit to criticise Buddhism, Taoism and Catholicism.

A religious leader was admonished for criticising a widespread Hindu belief in 1995 that statues of one of their deities, Ganesha, could drink milk offerings.

"Any religious leader who says such things against other religions would definitely upset the followers of those religions," Wong said.

That would bar them from addressing any congregation or group on any subject. In fact they will not hold office or be involved in their religious publications.

Violation of this restraining order would be punishable in court, and if convicted, fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to five years, or both.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong sounded the first warning in January when he urged religious leaders to restrain and admonish overzealous followers who were insensitive and reckless on the Internet.

"We have seen how countries have been destroyed by religious strife," he said.

"We have no intention of allowing our delicate racial and religious balance to be disturbed by any group of whatever race or religion."

Between 1980 and 2000, the Christian population has increased from 10.1 percent to 14.6 percent , while Buddhism went up from 27 percent to 42.5 percent (at the expense of Taoism which fell from 30 percent to 8.5 percent).

The proportion of Muslims and Hindus remain more or less the same, at 15 percent and 4 percent.

Among the Chinese, however, 23 percent of those aged between 15 and 24 say they don't believe in any religion.

Government actions under the Religious Harmony Act would not be subject to court review.

During the debate, even government backbenchers who supported it said they were disturbed at the wide powers it gave the government.

"We cannot ignore the widespread anxiety, especially among the Catholics and Protestants, that this Bill may be used by the government to quash political dissent that stems from their moral convictions," said (then) backbencher Aline Wong.

In 1987, the government detained 22 people, including several lay Catholic church workers, for their part in an alleged Marxist plot to overthrow the government.

They were accused of using the church as a cover to advance communism.

Singapore's Muslim minority, however, remain extremely sensitive about attempts to convert them. Many see the Act as a protective cover against aggressive evangelism.

Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com