Since the second instalment of the series I completed in this column last Sunday entitled “An unbeliever’s interpretation of Easter” was published, I have been bombarded with stupid, completely irrational, irresponsible and even threatening text messages because of my critical stance towards Christianity. For example, one faceless half-baked champion of Christianity who claims to be Emeka, from Enugu, after making idiotic and derogatory remarks about me, questioned my intellectual capacity to challenge the fundamental doctrines of his Christian faith.
Another australopithecine stated that I would never dare to criticise Islam and its founder, Mohammed, because some mentally deranged Muslim would make me pay dearly for it. He even added the ridiculous prediction that in future I would become a Christian through the same epiphanic experience that allegedly led to the sudden conversion of Saul of Tarsus, as recorded in Acts 9: 1-19. Now, I want to deal conclusively with this nonsense about my seeming reluctance to write critical essays about Islam and Mohammed. First, due to the penchant of few lunatic Muslims to attack anyone who criticises the Holy Koran and media houses that publish such criticism, editors of newspapers and magazines are generally unwilling to put in the public domain materials which some fanatics might use as excuse to commit murder and arson.
The ordeals of Ibn Warraq, who wrote Why I am Not a Muslim, Salman Rushdie, the author of Satanic Verses and, more recently, deadly attacks on media outfits across Europe that published essays and cartoons which Islamic terrorists consider offensive to their religious sensibilities, amply justify such editorial pusillanimity. Again, my knowledge of Islam and its founder is severely limited in comparison to my solid grounding in Christianity, the religion into which I was born but which I later abandoned while in secondary school mainly because of its irrationalities, absurdities and the incredible fabrications and dubious origins of the Christian scripture.
It is pathetic that Muslim fanatics who are mere mortals like everyone else would arrogate to themselves the moral high ground by sublimating their mental illness and frustrations by claiming to fight for Allah. But there is something definitely wrong with a religion that provides a convenient or easy excuse for a bunch of lunatics to maim, kill and destroy in the name of a God who is supposed to be the almighty spiritual being and creator of the universe. If, indeed, Muslim fanatics genuinely believe what they proclaim about Allah and about Islam being a religion of peace, mercy and compassion, it would become immediately obvious to them that violence and true worship of their God are antithetical to each other.
Therefore, although I am convinced that it is self-abnegating for humans to worship God, it is even worse for believers to use violence as a means of converting others to the religion that propitiates such a God. A deity that requires violence to win people over deserves contempt, not worship. In any case, once I acquire a reasonable knowledge of Islam, I would state my honest opinion about its doctrines and the practices of those that call themselves Muslims, despite the real dangers associated with doing so. In fact, time has come for the vast majority of Muslims worldwide who are peaceful and law abiding to take concrete measures against fanatics in their midst whose wickedness and bloodthirsty interpretation of certain koranic texts have made Islam extremely loathsome for billions of people across the world.
To a large percentage of Nigerians, the explosive expansion of Christianity and Islam in recent years is a welcome development. Many Christians believe that the difficult situation we have been facing especially since 1984 would have worsened considerably were it not for the fervent intercessory prayers of the faithful. Similarly, during Islamic festivals, Muslim clerics praise Allah for keeping Nigeria together as one country despite the centrifugal forces threatening to tear the country apart. Generally, in spite of evidence to the contrary, religionists are convinced that any good thing that happens to them or to the larger community must be due to God’s grace, whereas evil occurrences, which are mostly man made, are due to the wicked machinations of the devil. I have a completely different opinion about all this, about the effects of religion on the lives of Nigerians and on the country as a whole. I strongly believe that, overall, religion is detrimental to the intellectual, moral and spiritual development of Nigerians, which implies that religion is a very serious obstacle to the emergence of a strong, egalitarian, prosperous, peaceful, scientifically advanced and spiritually enlightened Nigerian nation. In otherwords, the country would have progressed far beyond the deplorable state in which she is right now if a substantial percentage of the citizens, especially members of the elite, had imbibed secular or scientific humanism rather than Christianity and Islam as a basic worldview to guide both the private and public aspects of their lives. Now, the 1999 Constitution proclaims that Nigeria is a secular state, that the country has no officially recognised state religion. But the proclamation is vacuous and misleading, for it creates the false impression that religion does not matter in the daily transactions of government and that freedom of unbelief is protected and guaranteed.
If Nigeria were indeed a secular state, why are public officials required to swear with the Holy Bible or the Holy Koran while taking oaths of office? Why did our leaders waste scarce public resources building churches and mosques in Aso Rock and in state government houses throughout the federation? What is the rationale for having a slot for one’s religion in documents for official transactions, such as voter registration exercise and employment in the civil service? Let us stop deceiving ourselves pretending that Nigeria is a secular state – she is not. On the contrary, Nigeria is a multi-religious country dominated overwhelmingly by Christians and Muslims, with the vanishing number of adherents of indigenous religions playing an insignificant third fiddle. Introduction of sharia in the North, which in itself is a negation of secularism, demonstrates that for some key members of the Northern establishment, Islamic law takes precedence over the 1999 constitution that is supposed to be the fundamental law, the grundnorm, of the federal republic. It follows that religion plays a very important role in the lives of Nigerians and influences official policies of government. Now that we have a devout Muslim and a born-again Christian as President and Vice-President respectively, there is no doubt that religion will be one of the key factors shaping decisions at the highest levels of governance.
Before I outline a secular or scientific humanistic critique of religion by identifying the various ways in which religion has had (and continues to have) detrimental effects on individuals and communities, it is necessary to present, first, the concept of secular or scientific humanism and the core values associated with it. That would provide the necessary background for appreciating the qualitative difference between religious worldview and scientific humanism as well as the imperative of replacing the former with the latter. Like every word that connotes a complex reality, ‘humanism’ has more than one meaning. However, humanists in general would agree with Barbara Smoker’s definition of ‘humanism’ in its broadest sense as an attitude of mind centred on humanity and human interests – not to the exclusion of other animals and the natural environment generally, but definitely to the exclusion of gods, angels, devils, and other imaginary beings postulated by religion. It implies a desire to think for oneself, to accept the results of free critical inquiry whatever they might be, and to act in accordance with those results in the light of reason and in cooperation with others for the promotion of human happiness. Before the 1960s, ‘humanism’ was virtually synonymous with ‘free thought’ or ‘free thinking,’ suggesting a rejection of religious beliefs based on purported divine revelation. With time, its meaning became blurred. Christians and adherents of other faiths who, while believing in the supernatural realmand were also very concerned with human welfare in this life, began to describe themselves as ‘humanists’ also.
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