Guest Post No. 2: On Religion

Hi all, this is a very insightful piece written by Bode Ogunshina a very good friend of mine- for my blog. It dwells on individual choices and religious beliefs. I hope it moves you a little bit closer to consciousness. Read enjoy and share!  You can follow Bode on Twitter via @RudeBode.

Thanks.

L.S

YOU. BELIEVE. YOU.

When I was growing up, trying my intellectual strength with things, trying to find myself, becoming my own man, and whatever else you might want to call it, I caught on to the concept of Atheism. I had been brought up a Christian, and my parents weren’t even the most devout of Christians; but I was. I wasn’t about to *beep* up my eternal life. I didn’t want to burn in Hell for eternity, and I didn’t think anybody else would like to either.

Some might say this mindset is simple; “The mind of a child”. Etcetera, etcetera. I’d say this mindset is naïve, and also, the mind of a child. However, my definition of the mindset of a child is not fraught with emotions, fantasy, and a little bit of fact, but rather is more specific – the mind of a child lacks the ability to think critically and philosophically. They accept what you tell them without question, because their mind cannot fathom that you might be wrong, or that there might be some other option.

I remember when I was a kid, my father told me that his tribal marks were acquired whilst he fought a lion. He couldn’t kill the lion, he said, but after he had landed the lion a few blows, the lion got scared and *beep* fled the *beep* off. I believed this story, and this is the exact same way that I believed the story of Christianity, its doctrines, and that I had to give my offering or I’d go to Hell, whilst the other kids used theirs to buy ice cream and candy after church.

I came across a course in my post-high-school years called Theory of Knowledge, T.O.K for short. T.O.K basically defines truth, and classifies knowledge, whilst teaching you other things that might help you shine in a Philosophy, Economics, or Sociology class. T.O.K put my mind in my hand. T.O.K gave the deeds of my mind into my, rightful, hands. I was no longer confined in the world of morality and trends that my parents and the society had created for me. I could now choose to do what the *beep* I wanted to with my mind, now that I had realized that the truth is a singular unchanging concept no matter what they might tell you, and no matter what kind of evidence they might present. That the truth is the truth no matter what, no matter what they might tell you the truth is.

Not to delve into the interesting course of T.O.K too deeply, but T.O.K made me realize that everything they have told us could be a lie. How do you know that the historical facts that they have told you are true? Even in the world of history, there have been many stories of historians altering knowledge for their own gain. Most especially, I wondered how the *beep* we knew that God was real, when there was no evidence, but only a book with, for the most part, unknown origins.

This is when I became an ‘atheist’. I became very angry at Christians, not just because I believed that they had deceived me for the past 18 years, but also because they were too stupid to see that what they were following didn’t make sense; that what they were following could never make sense. Come on, man. What the *beep*. God knows everything, but he still gives you a choice to decide whether you go to Heaven or Hell. (I remember I used to say. “Either God is omniscient, or he doesn’t give a choice. Either way, he’s a liar.”) Both those concepts are mutually exclusive, logically (and obviously, from the point of view of my then-beloved T.O.K). I tried and tried in vain to explain their stupidity, ignorance, and stubbornness to Christians. I persecuted them with words, I even, for a time, hated them.

I am still not a Christian. I have dabbled with various other religions, but in the end, they tired me out. But I am not an Atheist.

Atheism, Christianity, Agnosticism, all these concepts, they are concepts of the childish mind. One might wonder how which kind of child would be introduced to, at least, the concepts of Atheism and Agnosticism. They cannot understand these concepts, a morally upright and responsible adult would say. However, most adults, until they die, still do not understand these concepts. Today, Christians will still harbor that little prejudice against Atheists and Agnostics. Agnostics and Atheists will still piss Christians off by cracking Jesus-jokes and blaspheming freely.

They do not understand that they are all the same thing. Atheists, Agnostics, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Scientologists, Ifa worshippers, they’re all the same thing. Christians and Muslims today are killing one another in Nigeria, and it is because they still do not understand that they are one and the same, and not according to the Bible or the Koran. The ignorance in Nigeria is almost so complete that there is nearly no other religious group in the country apart from Muslims and Christians.

The world is populated by 7 billion children, descendants of God-knows-how-many more humans, who have still not understood their basic nature.

I believe Jehovah Jireh,

I believe there’s Heaven,

I believe in war,

I believe a woman’s temple,

Gives her the right to choose,

But baby don’t abort,

I believe that marriage isn’t,

Between a man and woman,

But between love and love,

And I believe you when you say that,

You’ve lost all faith,

But you must believe in something,

Something, Something,

You gotta believe in something,

Something, Something.

-          Lyrics by Frank Ocean, from the song We All Try, performed by Frank Ocean.

That’s the basic human nature. You have to believe in something. Every second, every minute, every hour of your life, you have to believe in something. From something as small as the time you read off your clock, to something as emotional as the death of a loved one, to something as intellectual as the Theory of Relativity, you have to believe everything. Science, Religion, Emotion, Evidence, the Human Senses, these things might be a way of validating knowledge, theories and doctrines, but at the end of the day, you still have to believe.

They say the Earth’s radius is 6400 km. You have to believe in that shit to accept it. You have to believe that a kilometer is 1000 meters. You have to believe that the Earth is called the Earth. One thing that T.O.K never told me is that everything might be wrong, even T.O.K.

However, there are some uncontested bits and pieces of knowledge, mostly those concepts that are associated with nature. Gravity, agriculture, weather, and most things found in nature cannot be refuted. These things occur every day. It rains, and if you throw a knife vertically upward, you better move out of its way, because it’s gonna come down.

Everything else, you gotta believe.

Believe it or not, everything that I have talked about up there is a digression, but relevant. One thing I am sure of, is that it is YOU that determines what you believe, and whether you believe. It is you that determines where your life will go, where you will live, what job you will do, what you will eat tonight, why not what you believe in?

A simple example, the human body. Yeah, you can choose to do whatever you want to do to your body, but you have to breathe. You have to piss. Same thing with the human mind. You can choose whatever you wanna believe, but you have to believe.

When I was a kid, I could not function under the assumption that there was no God. Now, I am totally comfortable with that idea. In fact, now, I don’t give a *beep* if there’s a God or not.

What I’m trying to say here is that there are many different people in the world. If people choose to believe in the Christian God, it is their thing. If they choose not to, it is their thing. However, the prerequisite for living an enlightened life is knowing that your belief is your choice. That is when you have left the realm of childhood where they tell you what to believe, to the realm of truth and T.O.K, where you choose what to believe.

When this fact of life has become apparent to you, you will see that gay-bashing, racial prejudice, religious wars, and all these conflicts based on differences between human beings are baseless, and in reality they do not exist. You will realize not that you are fighting your brother, but that you are fighting yourself.

We’re all the same; we all believe, we just believe different things.