A little whole ago, Charles Dumbwin drew a parallel between Atheism and Satanism. This got me thinking, not about the article, because the article was well, just plain stupid. Everyone is allowed an opinion, and that is mine. Anyway, that got me thinking into drawing a similar parallel.
Let’s look at the Tokoloshe, yes that little evil spirit that has the power to cause illness and even death. I remember as a teenager, we had a maid who worked for us permanently and who lived on the property in her own room. And yes, her bed was raised using 2 bricks under each leg of the bed. When I asked her why she had bricks under her bed she explained to me about the Tokoloshe. Well I had to laugh at the way she believed in this little dwarf, but at the same time I could see the fear in her eyes. This thing was totally real to her.
Now there are a few things we need to know about the Tokoloshe, as per Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikoloshe), the Tokoloshe is a dwarf-like water sprite. It’s a mischievous and evil spirit that can become invisible by swallowing a pebble. The Tokoloshe can scare children at best, and at worst, can cause death for the victim. You can get rid of the Tokoloshe by calling in the witch doctor, who has the power to banish him from the area. Lastly, the Tokoloshe has also been known to rape women and bite off sleeping people’s toes.
So, let’s start by asking a few questions...
For instance, how many of you people believe in the Tokoloshe? C’mon, own up, this is important people. Er, ok, the room is silent; let’s try this, how many people have been killed by the Tokoloshe? At this point I’ll accept newspaper references, because I don’t believe many of you will personally know anyone.
Right, anyone know of anyone else who has lost toes to the Tokoloshe? C’mon all you 4 toed people, own up (or 3 toed people if you’ve been unlucky to be visited twice by the Tokoloshe).
The Tokoloshe must be super clever, because he can sniff out a Zulu just like that, because he only attacks a few of the black cultures, not the rest, and he certainly doesn’t attack any white or Indian groups (well not that I’ve heard of anyway).
Tell me now, what goes through your mind when some tells you about the Tokoloshe? Do you honestly believe that person, do you think “Ag shame, how can they believe in the Tokoloshe?”
And that is exactly how an atheist sees religion.
Now let’s draw some parallels between the Tokoloshe and religion:
Nobody has ever seen the Tokoloshe, and nobody has ever seen god. I’m not talking about the wonderful ways he appears to us, I’m talking about physically seeing him.
The Tokoloshe can be used to scare children, and so is god. God is used in so many ways to scare children into making them good little citizens, to learn the difference between good and bad, etc, etc.
The Tokoloshe only attacks certain groups of people, mainly the Zulus. God is only prevalent within certain cultural groups (you can discount the entire Muslim faith right there).
How did they learn and come to know the Tokoloshe? Well other cultural groups didn’t teach them, because they don’t believe in the Tokoloshe, so it could have only have been their own culture and their parents that taught them. Same again for god. The Muslims certainly won’t teach their children about god.
The Tokoloshe can become invisible by swallowing a pebble. Sure, and pigs fly. What utter unbelievable nonsense. Oh wait, Jesus walked on water too, and Moses parted an entire sea. Don’t forget impregnating virgins and talking snakes. What utter unbelievable nonsense. C’mon people, this is now the 21st century and nobody has witnessed ANY of that spew. Seriously now, if you still believe in a lying talking snake, you need help.
People who believe in the Tokoloshe live in absolute fear. Take the bricks out from under their bed, and see what happens. They will be paralysed with fear. Yet all they will be doing is actually living like the rest of the world is living, without bricks, and nobody is being raped by the Tokoloshe. But they cannot accept that fact and will put their bed up on bricks again. Religion, well the parallels are obvious. Take away the bible, churches, prayer, etc, and the religious will suddenly turn into the fearful. “How will I communicate with god if I can’t say prayers anymore?” But seriously people, nothing bad will happen to you.
Then there are the holes in the story, so why does the Tokoloshe only attack at night, why not during the day? Surely a human can overpower a Tokoloshe? Most humans can overpower animals that are a brick high and not even work up a sweat. How many people are walking around with missing toes that cannot be attributed to birth defects, machine accidents in the workplace etc? And yes, we all know about the holes in the story in the bible, and god.
There are two differences though (probably a few more), when you die you don’t go to Tokoloshe heaven, and the Tokoloshe didn’t bring out his own bible to market his story.
So, to the Christians, if you believe so firmly in god, why not the Tokoloshe? I am pretty sure that you have laughed at the stupidity of the Tokoloshe story when you first heard it, or shook your head in disbelief. Well you just experienced the atheistic view of religion. Yes we laugh at the absurdity of it, because we cannot believe that you believe that a guy walked on water. Do yourselves a favour, find a Zulu and ask him to tell you about the Tokoloshe, and honestly, hand-on-heart, ask yourself if you believe him. And don’t be surprised if you sit back scratching your head at how stupid this human being is when you have told him that the Tokoloshe is just in his head and he says to you “Well it’s true, the Tokoloshe has spoken to me, I have seen him, and you must prove that he doesn’t exist, and you are religious too because your belief is that you don’t believe in him”.
Finally, here is it, spelt out for you like so many times before. There is NO god; it’s just in your head, put there by your parents when you were young and impressionable.
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
