hopefuLandlord:
DISCLAIMER: This post is about the fears I (Hopefullandlord) faced, I'm not saying such fears are what's keeping people theists but if you're a theist and the shoe fits, please wear it
This is not a thread about HOW I became atheist; NO, its about the fears I had during my journey
Atheism is something I actually became for a long before finally embracing it, this was long before I even knew what the word "atheism" means, so if there had never been an atheist before me, I would have been the first one
Part of the reasons it took so long for me was FEAR, not having anyone around me to guide me on that path made me stick with theism for a long time
Lets examine those fears that kept me theist
1 fear of failing in life due to lack of belief in god
stories were told in churches, at house fellowship, at home, at school, at almost everywhere imaginable about people failing in businesses, academics, sports, marriage, health and other walks of life, and they kept failing until they met Jesus; after meeting Jesus, successes in their businesses, health, marriage, academics followed automatically; these stories usually sounds very spellbinding and are usually followed with the popular bible verse
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Mount Zion films also cemented this kind of fear, their films show all you need is Jesus
Hey bro, you don't have any hand? No legs? You can still become a Ronaldo Delima if you believe
Hey bro, you don't have a job? You can have a brand new car, a mansion and huge pile of hard bills in the next one minute if you believe
I know I exaggerated in the two examples above but consider stories of a someone driving from Ore to Lagos on empty tank; someone reparking a Car that had no engine (that story was all over Facebook)
our mathematics teacher who is one such born again was actually the most hungry looking out of all our teachers told us a story about a boy who didn't joke with his spiritual life, this boy according to him kept praying, fasting and attending fellowships; this actually took a toll on him when examination came as he was too busy facing spiritual life rather than reading; when results of the examination was out, he had the best result; naturally, we (the students or should I say audience) didn't believe this story at that point but our math teacher wasn't done, he said that boy passed because an angel appeared to him in the examination hall with answers, stood in front of him and told him to write those answers, no one could see the angel except this prayerful boy; we all believed the story ( secondary school brain)
To someone that's used to hearing stories like these almost every month since birth, the message is very clear Jesus provides everything Ask anything with faith and you have it
Such a fear was the easiest to overcome out of all my fears (it wasn't "easy" though)
How I Overcame that fear
I overcame that fear by keen observation, looking at the fact that the man or woman that prays the most is usually one of the poorest around
"Born again" students fail while a doubter like me succeed with flying colours; I then started to wonder where that "examination Hall angel" was when those prayerful students were failing
Seeing believers fail academically and me succeed actually made me realise that no matter the level of prayer you pray, you need to read, no angel would appear to you AND if you don't pray at all but read very well, you would definitely pass with flying colours
This fear was conquered early on in my life which enabled me embrace atheism faster, do you know why?
This is where it gets interesting
As you grow older, such fears transform from something you have much more control over; eg academics which involves studying, seriousness and reading; basically everything is in your hands, hence easy to debunk the "examination hall angel" logic since all power belongs to YOU and YOU alone TO things that you have much lesser control over; e.g Businesses which depends on a lot of luck; once you become an adult with those fears, it would be very hard to shake off, it becomes a part of you, you start thinking you can NEVER succeed in anything without Jesus
2nd fear is fear of witches, wizards, principalities, powers, spiritual attacks from extended families e.t.c
This was very hard for me to shake, growing up in Nigeria and hearing all sorts of stories about jazz being used on people kept me theist for many years too
Stories of people being freed from nightmares and impending death by mentioning the name of Jesus, stories in "fire in the word" by MFM (I read this bulletin every week, it was 10 naira back then)
Many tales of witchcraft attacks, tales about people using the name of Jesus to overcome those "attacks"
There was even a story of ritual killers transporting a woman to the kill location, this woman then kept shouting the name of Jesus in the bus being used to transport her, this name started causing commotion among the kidnappers and they told her to shut up, she however kept shouting the name until one of the kidnappers had to shut her mouth with a duct tape, she then used her hand to write "Jesus" on the floor of the bus, commotion resumed among the kidnappers and they had to stop the bus to let her leave
Stories of people that are born again being rejected by our local gods from being used as sacrifice while an unbeliever was accepted and sacrificed to the gods instead
Stories of extended families using jazz to bring family members back from abroad
Stories of love potions
Stories of relatives using spiritual means to keep their family members from succeeding in life
Stories of destinies being padlocked and thrown in the wilderness
Stories of grandmothers preventing their grandchildren from succeeding through spiritual means
Every Sunday, you're told these stories or their spinoffs
These stories were being reiterated by Christian movies and even secular movies are not left out
How I overcame that fear
The "grandmother" one made me start to question everything, my grandmother would prevent me from succeeding? Pure hogwash
Little by little, I started questioning each one
Witchcraft; that was the second one, there was this girl that people call a witch in school, she was feared by all and tales abound, like co students falling sick after having issues with her, even a particular girl died because of that; one day, I had a disagreement with her, she slapped me and I beat the holy crhap out of her, I beat her knowing I'm dying anyways, all through the rest of that school day, I was looked upon with pity by fellow students, most of them believing they'll never see me again, well I guess you know if I survived or not, right?
Your businesses and work fail because of anything but spiritual; I'm yet to see a business that keeps proper books fail without knowing the reason for the failure; t worst they fail due to bad luck
As I grew up, that fear got smaller and smaller; I looked at the huge level of curses being directed at bosses in Nigeria, its a surprise such bosses didn't fall down and die; how could Babangida kill so many people and none of them think it worthy to use "spiritual means" to eliminate him? Those Indians that are known to exploit us, they are stil going strong
Why can't that "spiritual means" be used to kill Boko Haram? Why is anybody even living since we should've all killed ourselves through those means since there would be someone somewhere who "deserves" those means
That was tough to overcome but I did anyways
3 Fear of what my family members might think
Hopefullandlord, What would your mother say? How would she feel? Your father? Have you thought about that? These words kept ringing in my brain
This was not really a "fear" thing but just a case of being in limbo out of respect, my parents take spiritual matters very seriously
This I overcame but I won't go into details because its more of a personal thing, what rocks my boat may sink yours
4 Fear of Yahweh himself, Hell fire and all
This fear was the hardest, hell fire, I'm burning for eternity
No one to save me, me and the devil who would torture me forever
Movies, books, Christian magazines, bible, everything points to hell one way or another
Here's the thing A visceral fear of something doesn't disappear automatically when you reason that the thing in question doesn't exist. You can still be scared of ghosts late at night just because it's late at night, even though you can clearly reason during a sunny afternoon that spirits are nonsense. Reason unfortunately doesn't override emotion just like that. It took time, fear of hell still remained for a long long time;
early morning preachers use hell fire as theme; you hear of hell almost everywhere
it kept cemented in my head and it was the HARDEST fear to overcome
But I overcame by realising all Muslims are hellbound; no matter how good they lived their lives, I started thinking about the good Muslims around, I then determined that hell is the place for me, let me point out that I don't believe in hell but indoctrination can be an almost impossible thing to overcome
So I started joking Elvis Presley, Fela and most of the popular people are going to hell, I won't be the only one there to be burning forever
Once I overcame this fear, I realised the absurdity of hell fire, it doesn't make ANY sense
Nothing I can do in this life warrants eternal torture
Even if I kill everyone in the world, I still don't think it warrants eternal torture let alone going to hell because of a lack of belief
Here's the thing; fear of Hell is an accident of your birth and not an indication of reality. Your parents/people around you taught you to fear Hell because they fear Hell. If you had been born to Hindus you would have been raised to believe in reincarnation. If you had been born a Viking you would have been taught that the only way to get into Heaven was to cross a rainbow bridge after dying gloriously in battle.
And BTW
Which hell?
Christian hell?
Muslim hell?
Hades?
Little by little, all these fears disappeared and I started taking full responsibility for my life, there's no witch that would prevent my success and I am succeeding
There you have it; all the fears that gave Christianity "life support" in my life for a long time
Thanks for the read Best post ive read yet. Great one bro |
