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The Religious Ignorance Of Hastily Calling People 'Atheists' - Religion - Nairaland

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The Religious Ignorance Of Hastily Calling People 'Atheists' by Rapmoney(m): 11:54am On Oct 19, 2016
I read a religious post on this forum yesterday evening that revolved around paying tithes or so. While going through the comments on the thread, I observed again, a religious mentality among many Nigerians which I have observed countless times before - wrongly calling people 'atheists' because they seem to hold religious opinions that are different from the usual and popular religious dogmas inherent in our society.

It seems most Nigerians are so confused and ignorant on who an atheist is. An atheist simply means a person who does not believe that any gods exist. With this definition, it makes me wonder if most of us truly know the meaning of atheist or atheism before addressing people as such. On the tithing thread I made reference to earlier, someone was trying to bring out evidences to show that paying of tithes was only an ancient Jewish tradition that does not conform to the New Life, where Christians are expected to live under Grace and not Law. Unfortunately, someone bluntly called him an ATHEIST!!! Why? Just for the fact that he was not of the opinion that people should pay tithes in the church. I am not concerned with whether tithes should be paid in the church or not; what I am concerned about is the act of hastily calling people 'Atheists' due to non-conformity to popular religious dogmas. I must state it also that I was satisfied that the so-called 'atheist' was able to defend himself and prove to the ignorant that he is not an atheist just because he did not support tithing. To me, situations like this, show an extreme level of religious ignorance among many Nigerians!!! There are people who belong to one faith or the other but do not conform to all the usual religious dogmas that go along with such faith. Calling them atheist simply shows how religiously ignorant one is because the meaning of atheism or atheist is far from what most of us ignorantly believe. Even African Traditional Worshippers are not atheists; they are just polytheists because they believe in the existence of multiple gods.

We should not ascribe religious or philosophical status to people indiscriminately when they don't conform to popular doctrines or dogmas!!! Especially, when we don't understand the true meaning of such ideas, due to intellectual blindness and incapacity!

Thank you.

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