someone wrote--
The insertion of the “virus” of Christianity and Islam into our independent populations was simply to soften up the populations and make them more pliable for colonial interests. Both religions incidentally place an inordinate amount of emphasis on subjection, humility and meekness. This was in stark contrast to our native spirituality, which encouraged introspection, meditation, expression, personal growth and independence. In whose interest was it for our native beliefs and spirituality to be exterminated and replaced with ideologies of enforced submission from the Middle

East? How did most of us end up with the religions we adhere to? What religion does the average woman from Enugu adhere to, and what religion does the average man from Katsina adhere to? Why is that? The unpalatable truth that most Nigerians do not want to hear about their religion is that the religions we adhere to are first and foremost a reflection of our upbringing, which is why the lady from Enugu will likely be Catholic while the bloke from Katsina will almost certainly be Sunni Muslim. There is really nothing special or mystical about one of the most basic processes of human socialization. The way and extent to which we take our beliefs seriously more often than not, is a reflection of our personal experiences and ideology. To put it in plain English, you have the religion you have because your parents gave it to you, and you practice it the way you do because you are mirroring your own personality in it. It’s really that simple. ‘God’ has very little to do with the pastor asking you to hand 10% of your monthly earnings to him or the Imam telling you who to vote for in an election. They are both human beings like you with an agenda – every human being has an agenda, even you. The idea that “God loves everyone equally, but those from my religion just a bit more equally”, is the source of a lot of what we perceive as “corruption” in everyday Nigerian life. There are few safer hiding places for scoundrels than the church or mosque. There are people who have built their entire careers on religious favouritism and demagoguery, having done not a single day’s honest work in their lives. They have risen to the very top of Nigerian politics several times and they are still there. Their constituents do not question them, because to question them apparently would be to question God himself, and how dare anyone do that. So we have people who studied Christian Theology or Islamic Studies being smuggled into key positions ahead of distinctly more qualified people by dint of belonging to a religious group with a power base in that organisation. Some very mischievous people then take it a notch further and mix religious fanaticism with the ready tinderbox of our fake ethnic identities, so that certain regions and ethnicities with millions of people become aligned to certain religions. Thus, we start to have a “Muslim North”, “Christian Southeast”, “Christian Niger Delta” and a conflicted Southwest (which incidentally has a clandestine culture war going on as perceived liberal Christian values and conservative Islamic values vie for supremacy). And we all know how that ends. One huge brawl basically. These religions are not ours. They were imposed and forced on our ancestors often at gunpoint. The people who imposed them on us do not practice them the way we do. Certainly the average Algerian Muslim would look at his counterpart from Katsina and wonder why he cannot read and write. He would be shocked to find out that the society in Katsina finds it more important to give children Koranic education than the secular education that gives them a fighting chance at having a meaningful life. A British Christian would be mortified to learn that certain types of physical and sexual abuse, which are not sanctioned or implied anywhere in the Bible are now commonplace in Nigerian churches, which seem to have evolved their own peculiar brand of the Christian faith. To anyone with a holistic understanding of history, it is not that shocking because the circumstances under which the religion was introduced to the population determine how they practice it. If the religion was flogged into you and reinforced with trauma, you will practise it with a demented zeal and violence, and you will flog it into your children as well. They will in turn flog it into their children and...here we are ­ a nation of overzealous, traumatised fanatics! So while Islam to a Kuwaiti Arab is merely a religious projection of his own indigenous culture, to a colonized Hausa man, it is a perfect and unattainable target, which he must spend his life trying to prove himself worthy of, and his kids dare not practise it with less zeal than him lest he flog them with the rage the Arabs flogged his ancestors with. Certain types of knowledge are passed down genetically after all. To European Christians, Christianity is little more than their cultural heritage, but to a colonized Yoruba man, it is something that was literally flogged into his ancestors, and he must practice it accordingly. Our experiences of the way the same religions are practiced in Africa and outside are vastly different!

When I was a student in England, I attended church services a few times and they were intimate, quiet, somewhat pleasant sessions where we had long chats about internal spirituality and global events. Prayer was viewed as something personal and private between yourself and God. In Nigeria, the few church services I have attended have been raucous, high profile, power­dressing, supercharged affairs where an inordinate amount of emphasis is placed on giving money and SCREEMING OWT TOO DEE LAWD ALMIGHTEE! So a Nigerian Christian will claim to practice the same religion as an old lady from Pontefract, but this is not the case in practice at all! The implication of rejecting ancestral knowledge to chase foreign chimeras is that there will always be a spiritual emptiness in the soul of the “believer” that they will try to fill with primitive accumulation. Nothing they have will ever be enough and they won’t know why. Nature abhors a vacuum. When you cannot have enough of anything and you are constantly looking for more, what will it lead to inevitably? The other implication is that in the absence of a genuine, non­hypocritical peace which colonial religions cannot give, the only way to live with oneself and justify what one deep down does not believe in, is to become a fanatic and a bigot. Nigeria is utterly flooded with bigots for this singular reason. You don’t need me to tell you why this is dangerous. To put it very bluntly, our insistence on clinging to the definition of the colonial religions that were flogged into us is one of the three biggest causes and helpers of corruption in Nigeria. So you want to “fight corruption”? Start from putting down that Bible and Quaran and taking up a social or economic cause instead.
cc: lanreni

henrimoto:



Baba, may i not be knowledgeable to the extent of doubting your existence.

Baba, when Men who think they are intelligent fail to comprehend why you remain dumb to insane things happening within your creations, some conclude you(God) must be a wicked creator, others conclude you (God) never existed.

Baba, what is it that will make me doubt your existence?

I may not understand why you permit some evils to happen to mankind but that should not make me doubt you.

I may not understand why you make me go through my current experience but that should not make me doubt you.

All I ask is knowledge, wisdom and humility to reference you.

But don't you think people grow when they
seek a better understanding of why things are
the way they are?

Imagine the student who never asks questions
but sheepishly copies out whatever he sees in
his books or exactly what the teacher said.
Can the student really say he knows what he's
talking about?

Just blindly accepting things to avoid being
seen as a "doubter" could put one into the
trap of sweet-talking con-men who will tell
you what you want to hear.

If GOD didn't want us to think, He wouldn't
have given us a brain to start with.

Cheers!

jammy12:

4 billion years Wow... Abeg stop believing science. They have deceived us well. They said carbon dating and half lives. I am a science enthusiast and I know assumption based on thought of a renowned pro is not science. Science is meant to be systematic... To prove something systematically

a science enthusiast but not a scientist

stephenmorris:
I did not admit am lost and again GOD or god does not exist

Drink some some water and relax. you said "...lost too" in your earlier post and now you are saying "..god does not exist", yet you were referring to an urhobo diety as god. you see there is a configuration in man that mandates he bows to a god. it is this search deep within that makes him come up with several variants of the God, albeit inadequate. look critically at your life. you'll discover you are " bowing down" to something or someone.

lanreni:

Drink some some water and relax. you said "...lost too" in your earlier post and now you are saying "..god does not exist", yet you were referring to an urhobo diety as god. you see there is a configuration in man that mandates he bows to a god. it is this search deep within that makes him come up with several variants of the God, albeit inadequate. look critically at your life. you'll discover you are " bowing down" to something or someone.

its not my fault you don't understand me, lol,

jammy12:

and what baffles me most of these atheist guys is the way they believe so much in theory. It makes me to wonder if they know what a theory is. Simply it has not been proven to be true... Charles Darwin that lied a lot with stupid theories only to be found out that it is false: esp. The theory of use and disuse when explaining evolution.
These same people will now be saying "how do you know God exists". Edakun " how do you know the world exploded just like that"... Did somebody throw bomb at it . are you buhari?

I know it's only illiterates that cherish the idea of a universe that came by accident.
when you look at the complexities in a human being,his skeletal structure,his mental aspect,his spiritual aspect,sometimes he dreams and it comes to fruition.
then you notice the orderliness in the universe how everything follows a repeating,particular trend of primary producers -primary consumers-secondary consumers-tertiary consumers-primary producers-and the. cycle continues.
are we going to talk about the awesomeness of male and female?
it is. only a careless and unorganized person that relish the idea of a no man's land world,if there is land,there. must be a landlord,if there is a car,,there is a car maker,,if. there. is a house,there also an architect.

jammy12:

4 billion years Wow... Abeg stop believing science. They have deceived us well. They said carbon dating and half lives. I am a science enthusiast and I know assumption based on thought of a renowned pro is not science. Science is meant to be systematic... To prove something systematically

i am not a science enthusiast. i am a scientist. two different things. i have learnt from scratch and built from the fundamentals up. i believe God, and God explains science.."....His power throughout the universe displayed.." thats were i deviate from my mentors such as dr. kaku and darwin.

stephenmorris:
its not my fault you don't understand me, lol,

oya let me pray for you.

lanreni:

i am not a science enthusiast. i am a scientist. two different things. i have learnt from scratch and built from the fundamentals up. i believe God, and God explains science.."....His power throughout the universe displayed.." thats were i deviate from my mentors such as dr. kaku and darwin.

Thumbs up to you Sir.

stephenmorris:
a science enthusiast but not a scientist

Well said it is quite possible. Studied architecture professionally but have a knack for reading up on various aspects of science; hence a science enthusiast

ever811:
I can only become an atheist the day one atheist can prove the bible wrong when it said...only a fool says in his heart,there is no God..by convincing me with facts not theory how we came into existence.. an how lifeless objects that release the chemicals that created life got there...and most importantly how it created male and female with respective organs for reproductive purpose..until then the word of the bible stand firm..only a fool believe in his heart that there is no God...

contrary to what our scientists want us to believe about science, science actually explains God!

jammy12:

Well said it is quite possible. Studied architecture professionally but have a knack for reading up on various aspects of science; hence a science enthusiast

kk noted

jammy12:

Well said it is quite possible. Studied architecture professionally but have a knack for reading up on various aspects of science; hence a science enthusiast

all the best architect jammy12. may you do great things like the architect of the universe!

lanreni:

contrary to what our scientists want us to believe about science, science actually explains God!

it feels so but it also defeats the existence of god sometimes,infact what is god to you? ,i have my own version of god

stephenmorris:
kk noted

Really, I don't want to be critical of you. But when you claim to be an atheist, I don't think you have a full idea of what that means ( you have a idea tho). Being really honest with yourself, has becoming an atheist fulfulilled the long craving for answers you really seek. Everybody have that craving, that's why we cling to one form of belief or the other. You don't need to answer this but think deep on this.

lanreni:

all the best architect jammy12. may you do great things like the architect of the universe!

Thanks sir.

stephenmorris:
it feels so but it also defeats the existence of god sometimes,infact what is god to you? ,i have my own version of god

"...i have MY OWN version of god"

jammy12:

Really, I don't want to be critical of you. But when you claim to be an atheist, I don't think you have a full idea of what that means ( you have a idea tho). Being really honest with yourself, has becoming an atheist fulfulilled the long craving for answers you really seek. Everybody have that craving, that's why we cling to one form of belief or the other. You don't need to answer this but think deep on this.

it seems you are new to the religious section lol

stephenmorris:
it seems you are new to the religious section lol

Yes I am. I saw this because it got to nairaland FP. Is there something I should know that I don't Sir.

stephenmorris:
I have prayed like this before but today I am an atheist .see my friend God does not exist
, if knowing right from wrong without being a Christian or moslem and someone tells me am wrong and lost , I just look at how such person has been so enslaved by foreign religions,
note:I hold no grudge against any Christian or moslem because im not here to make you an atheist, its your choice to make, study your religions and its history and weigh the evidence, if you choose to still remain a Christian good if you choose atheism good as long as you are a good citizen of the country you dwell in.
I don't have problems with Christian friends either.
cc:hahn, Loj, philferon

I can't believe so much of you are atheists. Interesting! If you believe there's no God, it simply means you know He exists but refused to acknowledge Him. I've had several unanswered prayers like some of you, but that doesn't mean I should deny God. Never! Who do you think created you? Your life doesn't belong to you, it belongs to God. All these "it's my life and I can live it the way I like" is a falacy. You're the caretaker of the life God gave you. And you will give account to Him one day. Repent and return to God before its too late! I urge you in Jesus name. Amen.

Ranchhoddas:
Wow!!

I'm curious as to what your wow! represents

OoniOfIfe:
Whan I was a christian I was praying for knowledge,

Today I'm an atheist and I'm glad

Only A fool that says there is no God.
So help me complete this sentence.
You are a _____. A big one.

stephenmorris:
if god is really your father you won't be scared of him

Hmm...wen dat time reach fear go catch u too...

hopefulLandlord:

I'm curious as to what your wow! represents

lol... Awe.

ever811:
I can only become an atheist the day one atheist can prove the bible wrong when it said...only a fool says in his heart,there is no God..by convincing me with facts not theory how we came into existence.. an how lifeless objects that release the chemicals that created life got there...and most importantly how it created male and female with respective organs for reproductive purpose..until then the word of the bible stand firm..only a fool believe in his heart that there is no God...

But can you prove with fact that there is a God and not using the bible which in itself is theory?

davtosh:
Many say God does not exist

But they believe Witches exist,

They believe the herbalists have power to hypnotise,

They believe that yes there is Ritual Money

They fear the Babalawos because they know they possess some kind of powers,

They see the magicians do extra ordinary magics and believe it's some power that does that for them.

They believe in Illuminati and know a power is behind such.

But Yet They Believe there is No God.

Can there be Negative without Positive?
Can there be Evil without the opposite
Can there be the Devil without God.
Can there be darkness without Light


Every aspect of life work perfectly to make existence possible.

No sun no life
No water no life
No food no life
No air no life

And all these came by chance?


Atheism is Stupidity.

Atheism may look stupid only because it denies the supernatural in its entirety. But when an atheist says there's no God, he is almost right. This is because there's no God in the way Christians, Muslims, and other popular religions think of it. The so called supernatural is a product of nature.
Nature is the presiding consciousness that brought everything into existence. It has no personality, doesnt reason, doesn't hold grudges against anyone, doesn't judge anyone, and is indifferent to how you live. But it is the creative and destructive energy which permeates everything, and It tends to follow some natural laws and blueprint it set for itself. This presiding energy/consciousness is the source of all magick and existence. It has no beginning and no end. It is synonymous with the universe or mother nature.
Higher beings, created same way we were created by the natural workings of this energy, have gained mastery over this energy, and can use it for different purposes. This sea of pure consciousness is available for anyone who has the knowledge to use. Christians and Muslims should indeed stop wasting their time praying to some imaginery God who sits in the sky, monitoring human affairs. That is the deception and lie.

ivili:
But can you prove with fact that there is a God and not using the bible which in itself is theory?

is that the answer.?

jammy12:

and what baffles me most of these atheist guys is the way they believe so much in theory. It makes me to wonder if they know what a theory is. Simply it has not been proven to be true..

this was the same statement someone made earlier please educate yourself and know what a theory is

engrchykae:
and u claim to be enlightened but a foolish theory such. as the big bang theory and evolution appeals to you.

please show how foolish the evolution theory am sure a noble prize is waiting for you

Edenoscar:

please show how foolish the evolution theory am sure a noble prize is waiting for you

if you will tell me exactly how long it took the first monkey to fully. evolve into man then I can start to prove your evolution wrong.

History and the Bible has it that the red Sea parted for the isrealite to pass through. The isrealite walked on dry land. You think this is magic? You think there is no God? If you think this is a lie you can goggle search for proofs!

Iamdipson:
History and the Bible has it that the red Sea parted for the isrealite to pass through. The isrealite walked on dry land. You think this is magic? You think there is no God? If you think this is a lie you can goggle search for proofs!

can you please provide a link proving that

thank you in advance