One man’s devoted believer is another’s Pagan. Make no mistake nor be
fooled by pseudo inter-religious public relations. Each time inner
circle of Pastor Oritsejafor CAN is gathered alone - anyone who doesn’t
member their Christian cult is a hopeless Pagan Atheist.
And, the same is true any time Muslim brotherhoods in northern
Nigeria meet in a lonely place: say of worship – all who’re not Muslim
are sinning Pagans or Atheist losers.
If you imply that I’m Atheist for not believing in the supremacy of
your personal God, you’re also as my Atheist for not having the choice
to freethinking will as I do. Should you refer me as Pagan for not being
Jewish, Christian or Muslim - you too, is my Pagan for going contrary
to my own system of believing. And in the end, we’re all godforsaken
Pagan-Atheist to the other sect or person. And does that move this word
ahead one bit?
The greatest mistake humanity did was to let the tree dominant
religions of Christianity, Jewish and Muslim to dictate who a Pagan or
Atheist is linguistically. But in practical sense, all religions do not
differentiate Paganism from Atheism and sundry biases. They classify
everyone along the line of ‘with us or against us, good guys and bad
guys, sinners and believers.’ I hear that someone is raising huge sums
of money to re-write part of the Bible and I hope all religious Books
are rewritten to mirror present day happenings. And when that’s done –
I’d certainly appreciate if they replace the Pagan/Atheist biases with
“... everyone has got the right to decides his own destiny, and in this
judgement, there’s no partiality” as sang by Bob Marley the reggae
champion singer.
This article is dedicated to Mr. Sabella Ogbobode Abidde who wrote an
article “The Night I Confessed My Sins” as published by Sahara
Reporters on June 5, 2011. He wrote clearly how he painfully became
born-again Christian after two decades of being an ‘atheist.’ He had to
do that in other to fit into the Nigerian society where freethinking
mindset is labelled with utmost suspicion and bias as stereotypical
behaviour of Satanists.
Mr Sabella needed and urgently too, to belong to a particular
religious cult so as to feel accepted by members of the Nigerian society
who feared his independent freethinking will as unacceptable. He wrote:
“I became a born-again Christian. I had to because I couldn't take it
anymore: I couldn't take the suffering, the abuse, the ridicule and the
insinuations.” And so he added: “You cannot imagine the abuses that
came my way when I tell people I don't do God or Church or any form of
religion. Some would even ask: "if you don't serve God, what do you
serve?" to which I usually would answer, "If I don't serve God must I
necessarily serve some other gods?"
A lot of religionists stay in the comfort zone of their religious
codes to call others Atheist or Pagan. What they do not realise is the
fact that – they too, are unbelievers to those they call Pagans. Every
religion’s ethical code addresses their followers as true-believers and
the rest as heretical misbegotten Pagan/Atheist. Everyone on this planet
is an Atheist Pagan to the other person or group.
True. If you’d want to put the Atheist and counter-Atheist label
perception in proper perceptive, Nigeria with its religious and sundry
other divides – is the best lab for this experiment. If the truth is to
be told about present Nigeria, Northern Muslims sees Jonathan and his
Southerner Christian brothers as election-rigging Pagan Atheists. While
the Jonathan Southern Christians love to demonise Buhari and his Muslim
northern cliques as hopeless Pagans in the light of post-election
violence.
Practically, if you label me as an unbeliever because I do not belong
to your religious creed, you yourself is an Atheist-Pagan to me – in
that, you do not member my own religious cult. And that’s if you minus
the usual pseudo congratulation various inter-faith organisations salute
their opposing opponents with in the public. Which’s a different
ballgame when likeminded religious cult clique members meet under
themselves: all men are condemned except their niche people.
But the Osama Bin Laden group stands out for being able to cross the
line of pretension which most religious practitioners haven’t the gut to
proclaim publicly. His group would say clear-cut that it’s either
you’re a Muslin or an Atheist Pagan. Either you’re with them or against
them. No middle ground for the Sabella Ogbobode Abiddes of this world.
Truth is bitter though. But Bin Laden group have been able paint and
pinpoint the real picture of the mindset of those who found those
religions. Which is to dominate the others as the good guys and rest in
their various otherness’s, as the bad guys?
Although Mr Sabella Ogbobode Abidde described himself as an easygoing
Christian type who could mix freely and do as he pleases – but, you
still want to pity this guys who could not hold his personal conviction
or strive but sold out cheap to Middle Eastern religion. Our forefathers
and mothers would be crying ‘religious apostasy’ in their graves
against Sabella Ogbobode and those who’ve accepted foreign religion as
their articles of faith.
One good thing is that you’d be happy to have a Sabella as next door
neighbour than any hardcore religionist. A least, you could invite him
to a beer-drinking hip hop disco where you could both dance to the
hip-hop tune: ‘bitch better have my money.’ And the next day, arrange
with him to attend reggae dancehall with Lady Saw playing live with both
of you knowing that she some times intentionally exposes her underwear
or pant while onstage.
And however, it’s better to have freestyle Christian than having
one-way thinking religious fanatic. Who’ll paganise you at his personal
say-so. Man wasn’t born religious nor was he born with it. Religion is a
human construct like the English language ‘Pagan’ was constructed at a
point in time in human history – to defame some and applaud others.
The Early Man and our foremothers didn’t practice religion. Religion
accidentally and experimentally developed at a certain time in the
development of human history as the words Paganism and Atheism
respectively. Man wasn’t originally born with those. Any time you see
people who don’t member your religious cult, give them a hug and let
them be. Embrace humanity and chuck away religion for once and for good.
Sunday Njokede writes from The European Union
rig2015electionyoudie@rocketmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment