- I am distressed when I share confined space with believers and their every word is filled with God delusion.
- I am distressed when religious leaders accuse children of witchcraft and those self-styled prophets are allowed to freely abuse vulnerable people under the pretence of casting out demons.
- I am distressed that the opinions of religious leaders are deemed more important than scientific evidence.
- I am distressed when a child is forcefully infected with the cancer called religion
- I am distressed that creationism is taught in all Nigerian public schools but evolution hardly made it to a biology class curriculum.
- I am distressed when I get a group mail message from a feminist group, asking for prayers for a sister who is seriously ill in hospital and members start sending prayers to different Gods.
- I am distressed that I am most likely to get banned and be isolated from such feminists groups if I sent a response suggesting practical assistance might actually help more than praying to our different skydaddies e.g. financial assistance, volunteering to take or pick up her children from school or just writing her encouraging letters and asking her how we can be of practical help. Actually such suggestion cost me a long time feminist friend.
- I am distressed when religion makes me lose intellectual respect for those I used to like because in all honesty, I cannot have any intellectual respect for someone who believes there was a talking snake, a Noah’s ark or gladly quotes the commandments of a war mongering, pedophile prophet.
- I am distressed that I almost choke with disbelief whenever I am forced to share passenger seats with Nigerian religious believers, even in a London red bus, as they loudly narrate and gesticulate profusely on their phone to their captive audience at the unseen end, about how God just saved them from the evil plots of wicked village people, who somehow from the remote part of a Nigerian village, managed to use ‘juju/ voodoo’ to send UK immigration after them in London.
- I am distressed by the ignorance and bigotry of religious believers.
- I am distressed at how vindict
ive many believers are in the name of religion. The faithfuls are always praying to their Skydaddy and his warrior angels to destroy and kill their enemies by ‘fire by force’, never a word of love, always an orgy of vengeful vendetta. - I am distressed that I can hardly hold a conversation with Nigerians including some members of my family without them mentioning God in every sentence.
- I am distressed that the God delusion has broken families and driven a wedge between many family members with the many accusations and counter accusations of witchcraft.
- I am distressed that quotes from the Bible and Quran are deemed perfectly good reasons to oppress women and even stone to death gays, lesbians, bisexuals, Trans and women accused of committing adultery.
- I am distressed every time I see a picture of a blue eyed, blonde Jew on a cross hanging on the wall of a public school, a village church or from my mother’s bedroom because it is another reminder of colonization and mental slavery.
- I am distressed because the Gods now embraced by Africans have no physical or cultural resemblance to them; it is another reminder that Nigerians import everything, including Gods. Africa can’t even export its own Gods.
- I am distressed when the sculpture of a white, pale woman aka ‘Holy Mary’ occupies a place of pride in the center of a remote village in Nigeria. It is distressing that even though the foreign sculpture has no resemblance to th
e village inhabitants, it is somehow deemed the most sacred sculpture in the village. - I am distressed when an African quotes from the Bible or Quran to justify the oppression of another. I wondered if they did not read the parts in their precious holy books that clearly states that they are not the chosen race, that it is OK for the chosen race to enslave them, rape their wives, kill their children and animals. Do they have such short memory that they have forgotten that the bible and the Quran they hold in such high esteem were used to do just that to their ancestors?
- I am distressed that it is increasingly becoming difficult to have adult friends who do not have imaginary friends; they all talk about having a friend in Jesus, angels and skydaddy.
- I am distressed that even though I am the one who does not believe in a talking snake, a talking donkey, a virgin mother, a Noah’s ark that ferried all living things on earth, yet somehow I am the one the believers call crazy.
Even though I am distressed by all these absurdities, I am happy I am not one of the believers. To be called ‘crazy’ by ignorant people is indeed a compliment.
All excellent points. I share you feelings toward religion.
I second everything you said, but something about this issue in particular just… depresses the hell out of me. I can’t help but feel that whatever local myths or religions they had prior to this infestation had to be more relevant to their own lives, if not more based in reality.
I can’t describe the feeling I have when I contemplate how modern descendents of those who were colonised, enslaved, genocided, oppressed, tortured and burnt to death in Inquisitions and Crusades, stoned to death for thought crimes, now embrace the religion of the tyrants. Not only those of African descent, but aboriginal peoples the world over, and, yes, even Europeans, who were, for a large part, converted at the point of a sword, from their native religions. Not to say that all indigenous and Pagan religions were perfect and universally moral, but they were generally better than what came after. I often wonder how individual people could enthusiastically adopt those nasty imported religions today, knowing where they came from and how cruelly they were enforced upon their ancestors. It boggles my mind.
@Jackie, Ms. Paper if ya nasty, Thank you. I wish we do not have these feelings but as long as there is religion messing with facts and logic, there will be these distressed feelings. We can only try to channel it to demand progressive change.
@VeganAtheistWeirdo:
And that is what breaks my heart. A few months ago, I attended a burial ceremony of a colleague’s mother in a remote village in Nigeria. It was so remote that it did not even have electricity. That was strange because I thought all parts of oil-rich Nigeria had electricity. But what really distressed me was the statute of Holy Mary in the center of the village, right outside the Catholic Church, which also serves as the central meeting place of the villagers who are almost all Catholics. The pale figure that takes central pride of place in the village has no features that connect it to the poor villagers.
I watched bewildered as the colleague (who is a Christian) had to perform the traditional burial rite in secret, while the church burial took a place of pride in the printed programs of events. I asked why the secrecy and shame surrounding the Traditional rites, he responded that almost all the villagers still perform the traditional rites but in secret because their Christian religion forbids it. He also reminiscence about the various burial ceremonies and traditional dances that ought to be performed but which they could not because almost everyone including his dead mother has adopted Catholicism. I felt so depressed and wished I could shake them out of that mental slavery!
@Ibis3, Let’s burn some bridges- It boggles my mind too. It also makes me so sad when they use the tools that were used to oppress their ancestors to justify the oppression of other members of their community. So sad.
I love your work mam’…….so glad someone like you, can come out of Nigeria, and be a “Voice of Reason”. Shows some of Us can still “Think”. I implore you to please, do more write-ups for the younger generations of Nigerians as they are our future….Keep it up & Thank you.
@Wizardofuch- It is a good suggestion to do more write-ups for the younger generation, as future leaders and teachers, they hold the power to make the world a better place. We must encourage many more ‘Voice of Reason’ from Nigeria and Africa. Thanks and keep enjoying my posts!
It is so crazy that the only freedom that the people fail to realise is actually stolen from them is their thoughts, you know, when you sit down and think about how everything came to be and some times you feel lost in the middle of the thoughts, if you consult any religious leader that its a sin to even think about that, they have savage their common sense and fail to just get their lazy brains up to task their self on a free thinking spirit, you know truly, the vast population of the world are babies, age is just a number, maturity is by choice. Dear yemis, i feel you 100 percent, im a proud nigerian and citizen of the world. Sometimes i get fed up, waking up amidst the vast population of stupid people, same old stupidity, just a different day.
I am so glad to have found this website, before now, i have always thought myself to be a crazy man, crazy as the world implies, not actually feeling crazy lol. The religious colonisation is patience consuming, just at the announcement of cashless nigeria, the pastors are already telling their followers that pos will now be available in church. Disease it is, transmitted without check and balance from generation to generation, they fight to roll out malaria, hiv and other life threatening diseases, but fail to roll out the mother of all “imperialism” because of the fear of the unkown is it? I think we need a generational review, some crazy old ways are obviously not working, but well i think some people are working relentlessly on the generational review ive always proffered as a solution, which is the new world order in its full capacity. I stand for freedom.
This was quite a read . . .