It is very rare to find an atheist in Africa especially in Nigeria, it takes a whole lot of radical thinking to become an atheist in Nigeria most Nigerian families are Christian, Islamic or traditional religion families. First and foremost let me make things clear, I Love religion and believe is has done more good than harm in the human history especially the Christian religion, Christianity played a huge role in the Ending of slavery. most of the time Religions in their whole entirety bring forth conformity to a society .I love religion and I hope it will never stop because in my society it is what is holding most Nigerians together. the only problem I have with religion is belief, believe me I want to believe in Christianity who doesn’t want eternal life ,i really want to believe that i can live forever but sadly i don’t .I Don’t intent to burst anybody’s believe in Jesus Christ instead I want to be a believer ..I want to believe eternal life so I want people to help me comment and squash my doubts on Christianity and religion as a whole.
In this article I will some of the various reasons I doubt religion and I hope you can help me squash my doubt
Firstly there is the issue of the Age of the Earth Most Christians believe the earth is only 6,000 YEARS OLD but discovery and research say the earth is 4.54 billion years old far beyond 6,000 (You can read here for more details.) various Other proofs such as carbon dating and fossil findings Also say the earth is far greater than 6,000 years another quandary is the Origin of life and even the Origin of man .Charles Darwin as far beyond doubt proved the theory of evolution and it is even evident in our present times with Evidences such as Fossil Findings(Old Bones) and Molecular Biology (Similar DNA ) but the bible says all animal were created as they were,which from an evolution stand point is impossible when ,i believe we evolved over millions of years from unicellular lifeforms ,the bible tells us man was made from the sands of the earth and women from the ribs of man . i mean come on the ribs of man? even in the christian community it they argue about the creation of man and its technicalities because its has some contradictory aspects ,the bible itself contradicts itself at times and everybody should know that if you have actually read a bible , another reason why i am convinced the earth is far beyond 6,000 is the Dinosaurs,yes the bones of the dinosaurs date back to Hundreds of millions of years ,the Bible could not have any information on dinosaurs because it was written with the common Knowledge of that Era , the topics such as Age of the earth , evolutionary origin of life and dinosaurs are information that only educated elites are aware of and the common woman in the Nigerian market has no thought on this and will in fact have no reason to doubt her religion ,bthere are still many people who still after knowing this facts still believe in religion ,belief in religion is as a result of many contributing factors especially the issues of life (Read an atheist greatest fear ) .but why would you doubt science,your smartphone,your health care,your TV,nuclear bombs,malaria drugs ,Space exploration,Genetics,artificial selection and your also Internet connection were done on the bases of these Scientific Theories,these theories work.
Long ago let’s Say 4000 years Ago ,Most Parts of the World Were Isolated From Each other meaning they Had no way of communication and no way of exchanging Cultures Between Each other ,But all Around the World All Of the Tribes and Civilization of the World had Many things in common They all had some sort of Head ,They all Ate food,they all created their own Language and they Innately Had and Created their own religion and their own different ways of explaining the beginning of the universe and the origin of life and i can tell you there are thousands of these stories even in our Nigerian tribes we had our own stories ,even though some were completely ridiculous like the Yoruba tribe and their belief about the man from the sky and the chicken .The Chinese in Asia Had their own Religion and the Egyptians in Egypt Had their Own religion the people in southern America had their own religion ,all which were Developed Without Any influence from the Other or from Any Other source ,Meaning Religion Was something needed to Interact and comprehend the World they lived in Just like Language ,it was all part of their Culture,their way of life their way of explaining everything including death and also their way of reducing their anxiety about death.(read what i believe happens to you when you die here )
Look at the world ,1.57 billion people are Muslims, 2.2 billion are Christians (split into 3 main branches of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox and these three main branches are very different so much that they too can be classified as a seperate religion) and also 1.21 billion people practicing hinduism, all of these people are the same ,they Believe in a God or gods ,they all have their different perception of God,they will strongly defend their religion and say it is the Right one ,we are talking billions of people and these people are completely convinced that their own religion is absolutely True ,but why would 1.5 billion people believe in something so strongly and another 2.2 believe in another ,they can’t both be Correct, what makes your religion the Right one ,if you say yours is the right one ,billions of other people will disagree with you ,and you will disagree with Billions of other people ,why does it have to be yours that is the right one ,sure you might have signs and wonders even miracles but these other people also have their Reason for believing and you might think their reason is not Good enough ,but they also think the same of your reasons ,and some people believe in their religion so much so that they can actually die because of their religion ,that is absolute faith , faith greater than yours . ,why should you judge other peoples beliefs because you think your belief is right ,people jump from belief to believe everyday ,from Christianity to atheism from Atheism to Christianity and even from Christianity to Islam . it is estimated that there has been about a 100 billion people to have ever lived on the face on the earth and about 5 billion of them were Christians or Juditast . are the 95 billion people that were Non-Christians going to hell ? or whatever demise a religion gives for non-believers .you should really think about all these things and see your own Dimension to them.
The western Culture has somehow taken over the world and our Country Nigeria ,we have western schools,western medicine,western food ,western language ,western like business ,western houses ,western everything and including western Religion ,most of you Christians were born in a Christian home ,went to a western schools,had western Forms of entertainment(television),western medical care ,western environments you probably didn’t have anything from your ancestors influencing you ,but you see like 150 years ago most of your great grand parents were pagans worshiping idols and through out the History of the Nigerian people up until the western conquest we had no connection with Christianity ,and to say that all of our ancestors have Gone to hell and are burning as we speak in hell fire,or in any way you see the end of souls of non-believers ,but they are surely not in heaven .what would happen to all this people who were isolated from Christianity/Islam for all these Thousands of years not only in Africa but in Asia,South America .E.T.C .Western Culture as completely taken Over the world with two things ,English language and Christianity ,now we see the believes of our forefathers as obsolete ,Chinua Acheb , a Popular Nigerian writer reverted back to the believes of his forefathers (Read here) ,because he believed Africa was losing its culture .
according to bible scholars/religious scholars Christianity became so popular in the times of many religions in the roman empire because if its characteristics: it welcomed both sexes, it welcomed people of all classes in the society Rich or poor, it promised everlasting life, the rules of joining are simple ,the commitment was simpler to other religions at that time .There were very many religions around the time of the early roman empire and each Religion looking to become the main one, there were very man,y some were cultic, some only allowed men some only allowed women, some worshiped goddesses, some were only for the rich and high of status but Christianity opened its hands to all people especially the poor and the early roman empire the poor were a very huge majority another reason for the expansion of Christianity was the Emperor Constantine . There were so many other factors that lead to the expansion and Growth of Christianity
so Many things Can Happen in 2000 years Different wars,Climate change,Natural disasters,mistakes made .Nothing is constant but change itself ,so many events Occurred during the Spread of Christianity and you are just Going to Accept a religion of 2000 years ago . Jesus Christ Storr is Similar to many Other gods you can do your own personal research ( Read here ),and the bible books you use today to guide you in life such has revelations,Matthew, Exodus,Psalms were Handpicked by a set of people, there were many many other christian scriptures . But 66 Books of the conventional Bible and 72 books of the catholic ,there are very many others that were deemed not Good enough for the Bible by these people . Please also Do your own research on this ,i will Advice you start from Gnostic gospels . Another Topic is General Christianity and the Catholic Church ,their believes are so Far apart from each other ,that i don’t think they should be Considered the same religion .
Has we became Intelligent Beings we sought the Reason for our Existence and Who created the Universe .If you ask a christian who Created the World They would tell you God,But who Created God as a child i was Told that God Created God just to Take care of the little doubts i may had has a developing Child ,but the Debate of who Created God is a One of the major Arguments between Atheist and Christians .When you Think with Logic everything must have a beginning even the Concept of the Big bang Theory (The Theory which most Scientist Agree ) says the Universe came about from an explosion of Infinitely dense infinitely small Singularity ,but where did this singularity come from even the Big bang theory has its fault . All theories of the Origins of the Universe have problems and we humans just don’t know ,or just can not know(maybe we are not yet intelligent enough, maybe we haven’t evolved enough,maybe in a couple of Hundred years we would come to a conclusion)
To me Religion Shows many Flaws, Most Religion sif not all Religions Portray a Lot of Human Nature and animal Nature ,In most Species of Animals The male is the Dominant Gender ,And these Traits Shows In Homo sapiens(Modern man) in nearly all Cultures Males are Favored in every aspect of the community ,and the Same Goes for Religion ,In the Bible God Created Man(Adam) First then Created Woman (Eve) from the Pieces of man ,in the Bible Most of the Bibles heroes are men ,Jesus is seen to come as a man ,God is referred To has He , Even in the New testament Church ,The women are not allowed Certain rights,The man is the Head of the Family ,And In Islam It is almost completely Sexist. The Old testament of the Bible is about the Israelites who supposedly are the chosen People of God and the Way their God Helps them to protect them ,Conquer for them which in all gives them a sense of power what happened to the people in Africa and Asia ? are they not equally important. This very concept of God Choosing a Group of people as the chosen Ones is the part if the common human nature of self importance and selfishness that is why every religion created by a certain people is always based on that people .
All the people that Go to church may say they worship the same God but but the Concept of the nature of God is Fundamentally Different for Each individual ,if you were To survey a billion people on how they Believe the God of the Christian Religion is ,all Of them will not have the same answers .Religion as a whole especially Christianity provides a source of comfort and reassurance in times of hardship, many many Nigerians are in hardship and praying to God and believing in change is the only thing that keeps them going as I said before religion is so very beneficial .Christianity also provides the reassurance of eternal life, everybody wants to live forever, eternal life is another reassuring factor in the Christian religion that makes it so popular. you must have heard the phrase ”Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die” the fear of death is the fear of the unknown because no one knows what happens after death not even atheist can say what happens to our consciousness after death. Some professors say the concept of God resides in our brains some hypothesize that as we human being developed and evolved into smarter beings we gained the ability to forecast our own self-dissolution, our own death it produced tremendous anxiety(fear), another concept had to emerge which allowed that anxiety to reduce, whatever that concept was in had to have certain parameters , it had to be infinite, forever and everywhere otherwise it would have an end and if it had an end there would be anxiety so there had to be a concept inculcated within the brain itself and if you somehow relate with it or become a part of it the idea of anxiety becomes Extinct.
Religion is Driven by Emotion and Ideology .In the Bible The God provides Unconditional Love ,with Conditions ,If you don’t Believe that his Son Came to To die for the World you shall Go to hell ,a place of ETERNAL Suffering, not because you killed somebody but because you did not believe .A Religion Needs Believers And Christianity has incorporated Faith has one of the Working principles in participating the Religion .Man is a social Animal and Belonging To a group is part of their Natural instincts ,In southern part of Nigeria Where I reside the population is mostly Christian and They are quick to condemn any other Belief ,Atheism is one which is most Aggressively Fought ,To see a person not believing in a God is a rare thing in Nigeria ,I myself know the kind of hate and Annoyance felt towards non-Christians because I was once a christian, the Hate was Irrational they had not killed anybody all they did was not believing in my religion they had not killed anybody ,I hated that ,it was so Irrational that now that I look at it ,I see it was just instinct to reject ideas that may disrupt my Group of Christians.
you see about 3000 years ago people thought thunder was a sign that The Gods were speaking to them or earthquakes a result of hell breaking loose, even though we can’t properly explain the scientific origin of the universe right now doesn’t mean it isn’t to be discovered just as during those ancient times the scientific explanation for thunder and earthquakes, I believe a proper explanation may be brought about in 500 years time and religion will go extinct 2000 years from now.
3000 years ago the idea of atheism was probably not in existence and neither were artificial Satellites in the Sky ,as time went by the people of the western world started to develop and bring forth new sciences new technologies soon the idea of atheism started to grow during the 18th century and here we are in the most developed time with the most number of atheist .and most of these atheist live in the 1st world develop countries were most people are comfortable enough to not need the idea of a supreme being, protecting and helping them ,whereas us ,Africa, Nigeria struggling to educate and enlightening our citizens to 21st century standards are the most religious continent/country in the world. Even you the reader may not be aware of such facts I have laid upon you or may be aware but not to its full entirety
This is my first article that I would use as a template for my doubt.
Notice i did make any points of Specific Contradictory bible verses that will be another Post
Please comment and argue with me about all I have said.
Read this more Comprehensive Thought on atheism in Nigeria By a fellow Nigerian like my self – http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2013/the-necessity-of-atheism-a-new-agenda-for-nigerian-youth/
Nigerian atheist 