By their acts we should know them.
The bell rings , for the time has come for Nigeria's Christian churches, the megachurches that rake in billions of Naira every month, to show us and the world, what Christianity is all about.

Reeling under the burden of the Ebola epidemic, Liberia and S/Leone have cried out for assistance in the provision of protective gear and equipment for those treating and trying to contain the disease.

Although WHO and other international charities are responding, our own homegrown well-financed charities are conspicuously absent or AWOL.
Why?
Are RCCG, Winner Chapel, Christ Embassy, etc, not charities?
If not, what exactly are they?
Business enterprises with shareholders?

Putting all differences aside, this is a serious issue that deserves an honest discussion.

I just read that Bill Gates foundation just pledged $50 million to help in the fight.
RCCG, Winners chapel, Christ Embassy together can easily contribute that sum or something close to it if only their hearts were so inclined.

Jesus must surely feel ashamed when an atheist freely gives his own hard earned wealth to alleviate the sufferings of God's children while his flag bearers, satiated with corruptly acquired afluence, hide and hoard what they have acquired using his name and the name of god.

Africans, when did we cease being our brother's keepers?
Think back people, what has these tokumbo religions turned us into if we cannot even use these religions to help our African brethren in their times of dire need?

Not only money but "healing"
Where are all the faith healers?
Why don't they organize healing crusades in the affected countries?

Are u calling them to help or insult them. Cos ur. write-up shows u've made up ur mind already to rubbish the churches #nooffence

Donfamous: Are u calling them to help or insult them. Cos ur. write-up shows u've made up ur mind already to rubbish the churches #nooffence

Is is only among Nigerians that a call up for responsibility and accountability is regarded as Insult.

But if they have been found hiding from their duties and responsibilities to God's children, do they deserve anyone's respect.

Whether I am insulting them or not, does that in anyway diminish the importance of this reminder?

Apatheist: Not only money but "healing"
Where are all the faith healers?
Why don't they organize healing crusades in the affected countries?

...or at least send members to those countries as volunteers to help in the treatment centres. But i can hear the Naija man's voice saying' its not my portion to contract ebola in jesus' s name!'

Oduduwaboy:
...or at least send members to those countries as volunteers to help in the treatment centres. But i can hear the Naija man's voice saying' its not my portion to contract ebola in jesus' s name!'

Even as an atheist, it seems so clear that most christians, especially the Nigerian variety, do not understand at all, the message of Jesus as reported in the gospels. The message of Jesus to his people are so simple and so clear.

All pseudo-christians do is to twist the already perverted aspects of pauline doctrine.

plaetton:

Even as an atheist, it seems so clear that most christians, especially the Nigerian variety, do not understand at all, the message of Jesus as reported in the gospels. The message of Jesus to his people are so simple and so clear.

All pseudo-christians do is to twist the already perverted aspects of pauline doctrine.

Hmmm. The ignorant people( someone called them sheeple) are not to blame but the religion-aristocracy who profit from the ignorance of the people. Its a depressing situation in this country.

Mynd44, frontpage.

Oduduwaboy:

Hmmm. The ignorant people( someone called them sheeple) are not to blame but the religion-aristocracy who profit from the ignorance of the people. Its a depressing situation in this country.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Accountability? Are these people incapable of thinking for themselves? Their religious doctrine informs them that they are given free will.

plaetton:

I just read that Bill Gates foundation just pledged $50 million to help in the fight.
RCCG, Winners chapel, Christ Embassy together can easily contribute that sum or something close to it if only their hearts were so inclined.

Jesus must surely feel ashamed when an atheist freely gives his own hard earned wealth to alleviate the sufferings of God's children while his flag bearers, satiated with corruptly acquired afluence, hide and hoard what they have acquired using his name and the name of god.

There's a ready answer for this. God can also use Atheists to achieve his objective. They'll say something like he can even raise stones to do his bidding..sigh

Are there no people in Nigeria that need help? Whats with Sierra Leone and Liberia?

Nigeeian churches are allergic to helping non-members.

Are the ebola victims pastors of living faith or reedeemed?

The spirit programmed them to recieve from all but givve to few

THY SHALL NOT HELP NONE BELIVERS

mumumugu: Nigeeian churches are allergic to helping non-members.

Are the ebola victims pastors of living faith or reedeemed?

The spirit programmed them to recieve from all but givve to few

THY SHALL NOT HELP NONE BELIVERS

Makes sense.

In fairness to the Nigerian churches they are only doing what the Catholic church and the other denominations in various parts of the world have been doing for the longest.

One example:
The Catholic and Protestant churches preferred to stoke the flames of division and religious bigotry in Ireland rather than help those in grave need during the Potato Famine.

soundtruth: Are there no people in Nigeria that need help? Whats with Sierra Leone and Liberia?

Think big my man. If it becomes an epidemic it will grow to become a pandemic and Nigeria will be in the firing line. Sick people will flee to Nigeria to hide or seek medical assistance and will spread the epidemic to Nigeria. Let these Non profit faith based charities offer support. Also all those mosques supporting boko should reinvest their money into helping these countries.

mmsen:

Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Accountability? Are these people incapable of thinking for themselves? Their religious doctrine informs them that they are given free will.

Yeah. You are right up to an extent but we should also realise the prime position good & honest leadership plays in directing the masses in a society towards achieving certain goals & objectives. The Black race has been unlucky , in that, even in the 21st century we are still burden with inept leaderships in every aspect of our societies.

cold:
There's a ready answer for this. God can also use Atheists to achieve his objective. They'll say something like he can even raise stones to do his bidding..sigh

The United Nations is an 'Atheistic' organisation and it has been doing wonders.

soundtruth: Are there no people in Nigeria that need help? Whats with Sierra Leone and Liberia?

If the western countries think like this someone like you might have died of measles or crippled by polio or at the very least would not have had access to that your much cherished bible!

Oduduwaboy:
Yeah. You are right up to an extent but we should also realise the prime position good & honest leadership plays in directing the masses in a society towards achieving certain goals & objectives. The Black race has been unlucky , in that, even in the 21st century we are still burden with inept leaderships in every aspect of our societies.

Good and honest leaders are not the norm, anywhere.

You are naive if you believe that this is an issue peculiar to 'the black race'.

Rights are never given, you have to demand them. Possibly kill for them. Leaders will only do what they can get away with.

If you act like sheep, you will be treated as such. Sheep are raised for slaughter.

plaetton: By their acts we should know them.
The bell rings , for the time has come for Nigeria's Christian churches, the megachurches that rake in billions of Naira every month, to show us and the world, what Christianity is all about.

Reeling under the burden of the Ebola epidemic, Liberia and S/Leone have cried out for assistance in the provision of protective gear and equipment for those treating and trying to contain the disease.

Although WHO and other international charities are responding, our own homegrown well-financed charities are conspicuously absent or AWOL.
Why?
Are RCCG, Winner Chapel, Christ Embassy, etc, not charities?
If not, what exactly are they?
Business enterprises with shareholders?

Putting all differences aside, this is a serious issue that deserves an honest discussion.

I just read that Bill Gates foundation just pledged $50 million to help in the fight.
RCCG, Winners chapel, Christ Embassy together can easily contribute that sum or something close to it if only their hearts were so inclined.

Jesus must surely feel ashamed when an atheist freely gives his own hard earned wealth to alleviate the sufferings of God's children while his flag bearers, satiated with corruptly acquired afluence, hide and hoard what they have acquired using his name and the name of god.

Africans, when did we cease being our brother's keepers?
Think back people, what has these tokumbo religions turned us into if we cannot even use these religions to help our African brethren in their times of dire need?

Nigerian big MOG will never give any Kobo to other countries because they say that this churches are non profit organisations but they are only buiness companies who sell the gospel.

All this rich pastors are very quied at the moment!

SOS childvillage has a hospital in monrovia and it is at the moment the only health center which is open every day for 24 hours.
They just got a visit from the president from Liberia for their good work.

They have all what they need to work safe there and the money comes from Luxenburg.

SOS child village was found from one man with 40 USD in his pocket 1949 and is now in 134 countries and he was a catholic and who only want to help the poor, the kids.

The same is in the other countries where Ebola is this health centers are working with money from Europa and America.

Nigerias rich Pastors are heartless business man not more.

I'm involved in the Ebola outbreak response and I'm an atheist. Also, most of the WHO and MSF (doctors without borders) staff helping to run the treatment centre don't profess any religion. I've only seen one who admitted to being a Christian, but never mentioned it again. And these are people who left their safe, comfortable first world lives to come and treat Ebola patients.

Nigerian churches haven't done jackshìt to help or donated anything useful. A member of one big church brought a box of their propaganda materials (covered with their pastors ugly face of course), dumped it at the entrance and ran away. That's the totality of church's contribution to the Ebola fight and thanks to me, most of it has ended up in the dustbin.

EvilBrain1: I'm involved in the Ebola outbreak response and I'm an atheist. Also, most of the WHO and MSF (doctors without borders) staff helping to run the treatment centre don't profess any religion. I've only seen one who admitted to being a Christian, but never mentioned it again. And these are people who left their safe, comfortable first world lives to come and treat Ebola patients.

Nigerian churches haven't done jackshìt to help or donated anything useful. A member of one big church brought a box of their propaganda materials (covered with their pastors ugly face of course), dumped it at the entrance and ran away. That's the totality of church's contribution to the Ebola fight and thanks to me, most of it has ended up in the dustbin.

I know that some of MSF workers are christian, some of them work there because they take a break from their work ur use their holidays to work for this organisation.

I know very much also about this organisation because my daughter is at the moment in siera leone to help there and she leave her good and confortable job, because she knows they need help and it is not the first time and she make this and she didnot get paid.
She always work there when she has holidays and that is for her 5 weeks per year.

I know when I give money to this organisation than I know that the right people get it, it is the same with SOS child villages.

Do you know that samaritian purse spend 2 Million dollars to bring back their two workers from Liberia but the same organisation give at the same time only 1,5 Million dollar to Liberia.

That shows all how this new pentecost churches work.

^^^^ MSF is a fantastic charity. Unlike others, they spend the vast majority of their donations on their missions instead of bureaucracy. They've been taking care of Ebola patients since the very first outbreak in 1976 and they also come to Nigeria whenever there's a meningitis outbreak in the north. And they don't tie any bullshìt religious strings to it. Even those who are religious keep it strictly to themselves because they're here solely to help. Fantastic people!

I'm definitely going to donate some of my peanuts to them when this is over.

mmsen:

Good and honest leaders are not the norm, anywhere.

You are naive if you believe that this is an issue peculiar to 'the black race'.

Rights are never given, you have to demand them. Possibly kill for them. Leaders will only do what they can get away with.

If you act like sheep, you will be treated as such. Sleep are raised for slaughter.

This is where religion comes in. religion is used to mentally immasculate the people, to make them accept whatever circumstances and only look to an invisible skydaddy, whose ways are said to be mysterious.

Just look how many Nigerians, young and old, are looking forward to the rapture to whisk them on a magical spaceship to heaven.
Whereas, other people in other parts of the world are building spaceships to take them beyond our world for exploration.

Most people don't know that the space race , the race to colonize and collateralize space resources are already in high gear.
Recently, the US congress and senate quitely passed a bill that gave private US companies patent and property rights to whatever resources they discover in space. This, of course, is against a UN treaty regarding the property rights of space resources.

My point here is that , once again, we are asleep dreaming of invisibly skydaddy while the rest of humanity partition and share the vast and infinite resources of our celestial neighborhood and common wealth.

EvilBrain1: I'm involved in the Ebola outbreak response and I'm an atheist. Also, most of the WHO and MSF (doctors without borders) staff helping to run the treatment centre don't profess any religion. I've only seen one who admitted to being a Christian, but never mentioned it again. And these are people who left their safe, comfortable first world lives to come and treat Ebola patients.

Nigerian churches haven't done jackshìt to help or donated anything useful. A member of one big church brought a box of their propaganda materials (covered with their pastors ugly face of course), dumped it at the entrance and ran away. That's the totality of church's contribution to the Ebola fight and thanks to me, most of it has ended up in the dustbin.

Kudos buddy.
Keep up the good work and stay safe.

May the mighty FSM bless you aplenty.

In my student days, I did partime work for a christian charity soliciting funds to help child victims of famine . I called this particular man, who happened to be a an evangelical christian. He asked if evangelism was part of the aid package we were sending to the children. I said no, that we are only concerned with helping these needy children.
This man, this christian shocked me when he said that if we could not save the souls of these children through the gospel of Jesus christ, then there was no need to bother about saving their earthly lives, we might as well let them die and go to hell.

plaetton:

This is where religion comes in. religion is used to mentally immasculate the people, to make them accept whatever circumstances and only look to an invisible skydaddy, whose ways are said to be mysterious.

Just look how many Nigerians, young and old, are looking forward to the rapture to whisk them on a magical spaceship to heaven.
Whereas, other people in other parts of the world are building spaceships to take them beyond our world for exploration.

Most people don't know that the space race , the race to colonize and collateralize space resources are already in high gear.
Recently, the US congress and senate quitely passed a bill that gave private US companies patent and property rights to whatever resources they discover in space. This, of course, is against a UN treaty regarding the property rights of space resources.

My point here is that , once again, we are asleep dreaming of invisibly skydaddy while the rest of humanity partition and share the vast and infinite resources of our celestial neighborhood and common wealth.

I take many of your points but something I take issue with is the constant claim made on this forum that is is an issue particular to Nigeria/Nigerians. None of what we are seeing in Nigeria with regards to religious groups abusing the weakness and desperation of the people is unique - that has been the foundation of every religion with more than 2 members in every part of the world. There is an issue of self-hatred amongst Nigerians that is not addressed that I find disturbing.

Most people anywhere spend their time sleep walking, hoping that something or someone else will take care of them.

You mentioned the rapture - the first time I heard anything about the rapture was not in Nigeria but in north America.

mmsen:

I take many of your points but something I take issue with is the constant claim made on this forum that is is an issue particular to Nigeria/Nigerians. None of what we are seeing in Nigeria with regards to religious groups abusing the weakness and desperation of the people is unique - that has been the foundation of every religion with more than 2 members in every part of the world. There is an issue of self-hatred amongst Nigerians that is not addressed that I find disturbing.

Most people anywhere spend their time sleep walking, hoping that something or someone else will take care of them.

You mentioned the rapture - the first time I heard anything about the rapture was not in Nigeria but in north America.

But I have to remind you that as Nigerians, it behooves us to address issues as it affects Nigeria and Nigerians.

We have to look at religion in the peculiar way that it affects Nigeria and Nigerians.

Even Ghanaian brothers are not as religiously irrational as Nigerians. They are very culturally proud despite their religious leanings.
The average Ghanaian, even illiterate, approaches issues in a much more rational manner than the average religious Nigerian, no matter the level of education. This is something I have found to be quite remarkable.

@mmsen
You are definitely right. There is indeed self hatred that is so common among Nigerians.

I used to think that Nigerians were the kindest people on earth.

I once went to an Anglican Church in Canada, a very small church, that emptied their treasury and raised a bit more to $8000 to rebuild dilapidated primary school in faraway Mali. I eagerly donated because it touched my heart.

Can or has Adeboye, Oyedepo or Oyaks raised or given a kobo to build or repair any schools in any remote village in Nigeria, let alone elsewhere?

This is the op.
Where are their hearts, especially in these times of great need all around them?
Are they hoarding their billions for Jesus?

plaetton: @mmsen
You are definitely right. There is indeed self hatred that is so common among Nigerians.

I used to think that Nigerians were the kindest people on earth.

I once went to an Anglican Church in Canada, a very small church, that emptied their treasury and raised a bit more to $8000 to rebuild dilapidated primary school in faraway Mali. I eagerly donated because it touched my heart.

Can or has Adeboye, Oyedepo or Oyaks raised or given a kobo to build or repair any schools in any remote village in Nigeria, let alone elsewhere?

This is the op.
Where are their hearts, especially in these times of great need all around them?
Are they hoarding their billions for Jesus?

We make the same in my country with a school we build new in Kenya for about 600 kids it is at the moment a primary school and a kindergarden but we will have next year a secondary school the building is growing.

I am sorry the side is in german but you see what some people can make.

https://www.facebook.com/Harambee.FB

plaetton: @mmsen
You are definitely right. There is indeed self hatred that is so common among Nigerians.

I used to think that Nigerians were the kindest people on earth.

I once went to an Anglican Church in Canada, a very small church, that emptied their treasury and raised a bit more to $8000 to rebuild dilapidated primary school in faraway Mali. I eagerly donated because it touched my heart.

Can or has Adeboye, Oyedepo or Oyaks raised or given a kobo to build or repair any schools in any remote village in Nigeria, let alone elsewhere?

This is the op.
Where are their hearts, especially in these times of great need all around them?
Are they hoarding their billions for Jesus?

Again.

No attempt attempt to analyse why.

Do people in Nigeria not give millions of naira to their churches on Sundays?

mmsen:

Again.

No attempt attempt to analyse why.

To people in Nigeria not give millions of naira to their churches on Sundays?

That's my point. We have come to accept a warped and perverted view of what it means to give.
Many many people would neglect the basic or health needs of their own kin , but would give 10x freely to their pastors and churches.

I have heard people refusing to help their relatives in the villages because pastor told them that villagers would use their money for juju and curse them. Therefore, they should give such money to invisible skydaddy via the pastor, to bless them.

My point is that a truly honest person who has love and kindness in his or her heart would not fall for such evil falsehoods, but many many do.
So one has to wonder what is in our hearts that we would easily neglect our duties and responsibilities to our fellow humans , but choose instead to placate a mythical invisible skymonster?

plaetton:

That's my point. We have come to accept a warped and perverted view of what it means to give.
Many many people would neglect the basic or health needs of their own kin , but would give 10x freely to their pastors and churches.

I have heard people refusing to help their relatives in the villages because pastor told them that villagers would use their money for juju and curse them. Therefore, they should give such money to invisible skydaddy via the pastor, to bless them.

My point is that a truly honest person who has love and kindness in his or her heart would not fall for such evil falsehoods, but many many do.
So one has to wonder what is in our hearts that we would easily neglect our duties and responsibilities to our fellow humans , but choose instead to placate a mythical invisible skymonster?

You really believe that it is 'love and kindness' that drives people to give to so called "good causes" and not lazy group think?

Have you not heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge...