Atheism and Hypocrisy of Nigerians: Another African 419 Faith Social Media
25 July 2014
By A.S.M Jimoh
This piece is elicited by the string of tweets going
on recently on the twitter space about a boy who
purportedly left Islam to become an atheist. He goes
with the twitter handle @mubarakbala and claims to be
from Kano. His twitter profile then reads ex-Muslim.
Why an ex-Muslim? Why not just ‘I am an atheist'? An
Ex-Muslim can be a Christian, an Atheist, a Hindu or
Buddhist. Is he ashamed of his new faith? When someone
leaves other religions to Islam, s/he does not say I
am an ex that. S/he says I am a Muslim. And I think
this also applies to other faiths, probably, except
this new form of atheism.
Then I decided to go through his timeline. As
expected, his ex-Muslim tag fetched him a lot of the
backing he desired. There was deluge of messages of
support for his newfound freedom of belief. Many
people, especially the non-Muslim, tweeted on his
right to believe whatever he wants to believe in. They
were outdoing one another to get this ex-Muslim out of
a psychiatric bed to which his relation has confined
him as a befitting place. But, I was able to discern
the hypocrisy which defines Nigerians as being
religious people and human right champions.
Annoyingly, prevalent among the so-called enlightened
youth. I found out that the support he enjoys for his
freedom of belief was because he was an
ex-Muslim-whatever that means-not because he actually
enjoys any sort of freedom of worship. Nigeria is a
religious space, you know. So, when the congregation
of one religion depreciates, the other get happier.
This is just the mentality here, no matter how we
pretend that one people's religion is accommodating
while the other is intolerant.
I was able to see further the Nigerian human right
activists in their true nature as just religious
people behind the mask of civil society groups. I even
saw a write-up on the situation ex-Muslims face in
Africa by one Leo Igwe. But it is understandable why
Nigerian pseudo human right activists would be in the
active mode when the issue at hand goes against Islam
and Muslims, but become silent when crimes are
perpetrated by a particular religion or region. I
recall I couldn't count the number of lawyers jostling
to represent Muhammed Masaba in his 86 wives saga, as
they were so many. However, I vividly remember that
only one insignificant lawyer took up the case of the
little girl who was slapped by a prominent pastor for
claiming to be a witch for Jesus. Does that little
girl not deserve freedom of belief? Why have our human
right activists not fought for the daughter of a
pastor who converted to Islam in Niger state to let
her be? Is she not entitled to freedom of religion
which we so much sought for ex-Muslims? She was
kidnapped by the Emir, they say.
What of the pervasive cases of children being violated
in churches across eastern Nigeria under the label of
witchcraft? Yeah, only Almajirai in the North is a
problem. What about the rampant cases of baby
factories in Christian populated southern Nigeria?
Okay, it is only child marriage an issue worthy of
signing phantom petition for. What of the little girls
who are picked from southern Nigeria villages to be
used as housemaids in Christian households of Lagos,
Ibadan or Enugu, but are chained to pillars, tortured
and burnt with pressing iron. You know they are
actually bewitching the children of their
aunties/madams and therefore the pastor ordered that
they be exorcised. It is okay for some people to
commit crime because of their region and religion.
Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy!! Hypocrisy!!!
Now coming to the topic of atheism, is atheism
actually a lack of belief? It is not. It is
essentially a belief in nothing, but nature. It is the
belief that God is non-existent. Atheists believe
there is no life after death. Things by themselves
happen by nature. May Mubarak and other atheists be
guided.
Well, the way I have come to decipher atheists is that
they are misled by ‘freedom'which in essence is their
belief. Atheists suffer from freedom of thinking.
While you have freedom to think, you should also have
freedom to think rationally. This is what an atheist
lacks. The problem of atheists is that they think they
have a limitless knowledge of universe or nature. This
is where most people don't get it. Human knowledge is
very limited. The limitation of human knowledge makes
him discover things from time to time. If human being
has complete knowledge, there would not have been need
for researching. Man should have just made a list of
future knowledge, discoveries, advances and the end of
them.
Atheists are misled in the belief that they possess a
comprehensive knowledge, and through their adding
together of events of the universe they conclude that
God does not exist. But one can easily see through the
shallowness of atheists' intelligence by their
analysis of events. They question why there is hunger,
oppression, inequality etc., if God exists.
Indirectly, they accuse God of injustice and
unkindness, if really He exists. For instance, in @mubarakbala's
timeline, an evidence of his non-existence of God is
the picture of a crawling, close-to-skeleton man
devastated by hunger. I believe @mubarakbala eats at
least twice a day and yet a man walks around without a
meal but he does not deem it fit to get him a ration
of his meal and still he accuses God of lack of
generosity. He wears nice shirt as I can deduct from
his profile picture. I guess he has more than one of
that shirt. Yet, many children walk about in Kano in
tatters. Did nature not teach him to be kinder than
God by sharing his nice shirts with those children? Or
free-thinking does not enjoin sympathy, kindness and
justice.
The very nature of the confusion we have in the world
today is what strengthens my belief in God and the
hereafter. Someone, greater than all of us, must ask
that pastor why he slapped that little girl. So, you
mean if Shekau the Boko Haram leader dies today, he
will not account for his many atrocities against
innocent people. You must be kidding. Then if such is
the case, nature does not worth believing in because
it makes people not to answer for their crimes. God
may decide to forgive as well. The atheist would say
injustice. Why does the atheist see anything wrong
when s/he wrongs someone and the person decides to
forgive?
Freethinkers may wonder what sort of punishment would
God hands down to some criminals that will
commensurate with their crime. As much as we may think
any punishment is lenient, yet someone who commits
multiple murders will not want to go to jail for 50
years or be killed. Is a 50-year jail sentence or his
being killed equal to a single murder?
Atheists think nothing must be left to God to decide
and everything must be open to them like black and
white. Yet they never question their examiner at
school, a fellow human being, why s/he decides to ask
some questions but leaves others out in a test. These
are very basic things that atheists have been unable
to understand, yet they think they possess knowledge
of creations.
In conclusion, the very problems of human, which the
atheist uses as testimony of non-existence of God, are
human being themselves. Humankind accuses God for what
it has brought upon itself. The atheist opined that if
God exist, He should not have made the opposite of
whatever we consider as being good. Then the essence
of the Day of Judgment would be negated.What use is
the court or justice department when everyone obeys
the law? Whereas humanity has blamed God for
destruction of wars, it has not blamed God for
technology which give birth to the former. Have the
atheists question nature why it created them, unless
they also believe there is nothing call ‘purpose'.
Then nature must be stupid for creating for no
purpose.
Ramadan Mubarak to all my readers.
A.S.M Jimoh (anehi2008@gmail.com)
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EsinIslam.Com
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