₦airaland Forum

by Okoye Chukwudi Charles Ezeamalukwuo
“God made man in his own image;
A being of love and boundless grace.
Man remade God in Man’s image;
A tool of fear, hate and disgrace.”
-The Journey of the Soul

Yesterday, I was reading the news and I came across the story that involves Kano state Sharia law and the destruction of countless crates of legal alcoholic drinks. I was shocked by this development because I thought Alcohol is legal in Nigeria. I thought Nigeria is a secular state and that there is a clear separation between state and religion.

To make matters worse, the comments from some people on the post did not help. They argued in favour of the destruction of another man’s legitimate business, stating that alcohol is wrong according to the teachings of their religion, and so should be forcefully resisted. Hence, it is right to destroy what is legitimate under our constitution and under the constitution of many countries in the world because someone told you some one thousand four hundred years ago that God (whom happened to choose him alone) told him that alcohol is wrong. Hmmmm…unbelievable.

My experience with the antics of Organised Religion started from birth. My childhood and most of my adolescence were spent in the strict adherence to the Catholic faith. I grow up in a family that wore the Christian Doctrine upon their skin (alas! not as much in their hearts). I was taught that Jesus is the ONLY true way, the only true teacher and that any other way or teaching is false. I was taught that Christianity (which happens to have about 1/5 of the world’s population) is the only true religion ordained by God, and that other religions were works of the Devil. This idea of being specially made me a bit arrogant and proud. Out of many, I was among the few chosen.

But as I grew older and started to study deeper and wider, I began to see the similarities of my religion with the other so called “damned” religions. I began to know many of the evil practises and actions done in the past by the Church in the name of God. I began to understand that Christianity is not the only Religion that thinks it is special. The Muslims, the Jews, the Buddhists and co also think that theirs is the only true Religion. Hence, I made a 180 degrees turn around, an epiphany. Today some friends and family members accuse me of being an atheist and in dire need of deliverance so to speak because I disagree with their narrow view of God.

The root of my problem with organised religions lies in their inability to tolerate opposing views. Each Religion believes that it is the One True Religion, the only one instituted by God and the only one good enough to make Heaven, while it believes that the others will be damned in hell for all eternity. We see this mostly in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

In the Catholic Church, it was called Heresy for one to preach anything that contradicts with the Vatican. In the olden days people were burnt at stake for Heresy. The clerics argued then that it was better to torture the body that is temporary in order to save the soul that is permanent. In other words, whether you like it or not we will send you to heaven but first we will pass you through hell on earth. We see this actions being practised today by the radical islamists, who bomb, maim, torture innocent people because they share a different opinion from their own. But the true is that…
“God calls not only with the Jew,
Nor has he special relation
With the cross, star and moon and few;
For God is of no Religion.”
-The Journey of the Soul

I have asked this question many times and I will ask it here again; when a religious person encounters a pagan religion, whose people live in love, peace and harmony. Whose people are warm and hospitable and treat both friends and strangers with love and respect, and also embrace him as one of their own, treating him with dignity, but have only the flaw of worshipping idols, will he still go about preaching to them to repent and abandon their “Evil Practises”? This question beats me…

I have argued somewhere before that the idea of being special by Religious sects is a very dangerous one because it will make man to do unpredictable things in the Name of a being as ambiguous as God. The Israelis (who are but 0.1% of the world population) believe that they are the chosen people. God created 7 billion people and chose only 7 million as his people…does this make sense? This theory has been propagated by them to justify the hedious crimes against humanity taking place in Palestine.
The same can be said of Christianity in the Dark-Medieval ages down to the crusades and the spanish inquisition. And Islam too.

The teachings of organised religions have split in two many homogeneous countries today. We see this in India and Pakistan, we see this in Israel and Palestine, we see this in North and South Sudan, in Iraq (Sunni vs Shite), in Ireland and Northern Ireland, in Serbia, in Lebanon, and even in Nigeria to mention but a few. Religion, I have been told is supposed to make us better and more humane. But what I have seen is neither of the these. I have seen families divide over religion, Countries go to war over religion, Marriages dissolved over religion, Children dis-inherited over religion, innocents slaughtered over religion and etc. History is overflowing with the blood of the innocents killed by the holy sword of Religion.

God has become a victim in the hands of Religious heads, who use him at will to achieve their self-centred political and economical goals.
In my part of the world, Catholics hardly marry from any other Denomination in the Christian faith, yet we all are supposed to be children of one loving God through Jesus Christ…Make I hear!

Furthermore Organised Religion had impeded the growth in Science and Technology for many centuries. Man was busy trying hard to achieve Heaven while Earth rots away.
Earth is a Hell and not a home
Paradise; -a place yet unknown
Man in his quest to gain Heaven
Made a Hell of Earth; faith driven
-The Journey of the Soul.

Problems that involved simple human reasoning were left to grow complex while Man waited on God. There is this lack of ambition and constructive reasoning among religious people, their eyes are perpetually focused above, and their attitudes are usually one of resignation to their fate. Their’s is an unrealistically rigid mentality that is incapable of independent reasoning. “My pastor told me” syndrome or “It is written in the holy book” logic. To them, Earth is a distraction, Heaven is the goal, thus everything is accepted in faith. “God giveth, God taketh, Glory be to his name.” Hence nothing is done to advance the comfort and convenience of the society as a whole. I have said it times without number, the day that Nigerians stopped overly waiting on God to solve our problems, that day will half of our problems be solved.

In conclusion, I believe that the end product of Religion should be to make us more loving, to make us more tolerant, more patient, more kind, more gentle, more humble, more honest, more disciplined etc. Thus if your faith is that which makes you less of these, which makes you more paranoid, more aggressive or demand the blood or tears of your fellow humans, my brother…”Know Ye well thy Path leadeth unto Hell.”
“All Religion is part of truth,
None alone has it all by root
Any faith that practice not love
Is dead and far from God above.
-The Journey of the Soul

I believe that organised Religions by the fact that they are organised -standardised, are prone to manipulations by the CEO and board of directors who manage them. The chief aim of establishing those Religions I believe was to awake our inner self to try and find consolation in death while making the world a better and more loving place to be, but with growth and time, corruption which is the inherent in humanity entered into these Religions, and these goals were substituted for a more standardised versions; that of increasing membership, that of silencing dissent voices, that of money making and global hegemony.

I must state clearly that I too am a bit religious myself. I believe in a Supreme Being, controller of the Universe; God. But do I believe that he called only a handful of people to be his and condemned others…NO, with a capital. God is for everyone. He is not a product that Judaism, Christianity, Islam or any other Religion has a monopoly on. You do not need to enter a church, a synagogue or a mosque before you can order yourself a basket of God. There is no exclusive right or patent to him. He is as free as the air we breathe. And anyone who truly seeks him will find him in their own way.

For as it is written; “Seek (my good friend) and surely you will find.

Well written !

Hmm

Wow, you captured it excellently, before religion, we were humans

frosbel2:
Well written !

thanks