For the longest time I’ve stayed on the side-lines watching the Christians and Atheists slug it out. I am not sure if the Christians realize that Atheists generally don’t believe in God, may it be from the Christian, Islamic, Buddhist or whatever religious stream people choose to flow down. This begs the question why you don’t find that many if any people from other faiths contesting this argument that has gripped this site so long.
This back and forth everyone has been having is 50 shades of cute but why is everybody trying to prove each other right or wrong? From my observations I can say with certainty that no one here has ever died before and if they have they certainly can’t remember their past lives. That means that all religions are at best speculative theories as there are no ways to prove what they all base their belief systems on, specifically the afterlife. You could believe all you want but it’s possible that nothing happens after you die, and that’s a suggestion many religious people don’t like to hear but it’s the truth, or could be.
I have come to realise that religion gives meaning to a lot of people’s lives and therefore choose to never knock people’s beliefs. For me the idea of celestial beings or Gods is a coping mechanism developed by the human brain. When something is too vast, too sad or too beautiful for the mind to process we credit God. This tends to stop the mind meandering off into its darkest pockets and eventually making one mad. This human condition is present everywhere hence many different cultures praise their Gods in their own way. No religion is righter than the other if such a word exists and this leads me to the crux of this entry I have written.
Personally I find the Christian faith the biggest cop out, matter of fact I find any and all religions based on the Bible questionable. Besides not being able to get my mind around how so many religions can spring from the same book (topic for another day) and then point fingers at each other, I find it more questionable because of its track record.
By looking at history and looking at the world today I find it difficult to find any place Christianity has gone where the recipients have been left better off. To be as basic as possible we will start with North America, Christianity came in and has taken the position of the mainstream religion there but what impact has this had on the original inhabitants? American Indians were killed and almost relegated to the pages of history. No denying that America is the most powerful nation but this has come as a result of what almost seems like ethnic cleansing.
South America, from what I understand is mostly Christian\Catholic yet when we look at it in developmental terms it has been under duress for the longest time. It seems like its only now things are getting better and the same can be said of Africa where spiritual colonisation has taken place. All the places in the world where the Bible has bulldozed its way and replaced indigenous religions people are in turmoil. In most instances South Americans and Africans accepted the Bible with a gun placed to their head. Natives who didn’t buy into this were labelled heathens and exterminated if possible.
If a religion is so great surely this would mean a benefit of sorts to the newly introduced, but what benefit can the Bible and its religions claim it has brought to the world? If one wants to say: “Would you rather still be living in a hut” or “It brought with it education” I would say that a religion can’t lay claim to human ingenuity. If one is willing to make such assertions then we must also say that it brought colonialism, apartheid, global warming, guns and so forth. At this time Christians jump off the wagon and say: “Those were people who did those things not Christianity.” If so then it’s safe to say that the Bible has brought no tangible benefits to people who have been indoctrinated into believing its teachings. Looking at it from afar its almost safe to say people who replaced their religion with biblical religions have sold their soul at a discount because they have gotten nothing but faith from this “evolution.”
It gets a little deeper, while sitting back and trying to make sense of all this I realised that biblical faiths adapt to the conditions, which is why there are probably so many faiths spun from one book. More than adapt Bible people have an air of arrogance about them, considering none of what they say about the afterlife can be proven. I live in Cape Town and used to commute by train for the longest time and in all that while I used to see randoms just stand up in the train and start to preach. I would ask myself how arrogant this person has to be to tell a train full of people that Jesus is their only salvation when many on board could have been Muslim. The nerve to tell people you don’t know that they are wrong when you have never even looked at their faith.
This is basically what happened in many parts of the world, random Christians would travel the world trying to convince people out of their belief systems. I suspect they knew that once they could get people to abandon their beliefs controlling them would be easier, if religious persuasion was not enough a gun would always make the point. I make this parallel because I have never seen a Muslim or Hare Krisna bloke get into a crowded place and proudly discredit others beliefs. At least they have the decency to ask if you have a minute and would like to hear them out
In conclusion I would like to say that I believe that a lot of the world’s problems have a lot to do with the spread of these Biblical religions. While they might have thought they were “spreading the word” they were actually going around destroying many many cultures.
These are my opinions, and from my perspective the reason my folks and kin are so unsure about our Tswana culture . I will put up a post soon to explain in more detail and a way that’s personal to me how I feel that our culture has been washed down by these religions but for now this should suffice.
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.
