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Abuja based catholic priest, Reverend Fr. Oluoma Chinenye John, who is
known for his exemplary and humane approach on the teachings of the
gospel on various human activities and religious obligation has written a
piece on his Facebook page reacting to the verdict of the Supreme
Court, Mbaka’s prophecy and perceptions from both sides of the divide.
THE OPIUM AND THE PEOPLE
Opium
is a drug used to numb pain and help the patients sleep. The opium is
like an anaesthetic. Anaesthetics are not curative, their function is to
sedate a patient as he undergoes what could have been an unbearably
painful treatment. Any patient given anaesthetics without curative
procedures will soon become worse.
"Religion is the opium of the
people" is a famous statement of Karl Marx. This is true, but relative.
In other words, religion was not meant to be an opiate: a drug that
numbs your pain but never treats it. Religion was meant to facilitate
your relationship with your creator and help you deal positively with
the supernatural dimension of reality. Don't make it an opium because
you become an addict if you do. You know what happens to addicts: the
more of the substance they take the worse they become until they become
destroyed completely.
Every addiction is a convenient flight
from a reality, a substitution of an uncomfortable truth with a
convenient falsehood. Don't let religion become an opium. An opium makes
your FEELING BRAIN take absolute control with no regards to your
THINKING BRAIN. It makes what you feel the reality, and feelings are not
always accurate.
When you hear a rousing sermon from a man of
God asking you to give all your January earnings as first fruit so that
your year will be prosperous, it's your FEELING BRAIN that will be
activated spontaneously and jump into the driving seat.
There is
no stats to establish that 'first fruiters' have better financial
success in the year than others. Moreover God is not babalawo that
demands things before the client gets help.
Therefore, THINK. If
you suspend the robust use of your THINKING BRAIN, religion becomes
your opium, it makes you FEEL VERY GOOD but not good, it makes you FEEL
RICH but you ain't rich, it makes you FEEL like your destiny is in a
ministry but it ain't, it makes you FEEL like you are so special that
your case is different from everyone's but you ain't, it makes you run
away from confronting the harsh realities of life frontally.
The
Supreme Court has sacked Emeka Ihedioha as governor of Imo state and
ordered the swearing in of Hope Uzodinma. Some people are already
blaming a certain priest while some are praising him depending on what
camp they belong. That happens when you look at the issue from religious
prism, which should't. If the judgement of the Supreme Court is wrong
and you accept it because of a certain 'prophecy', religion has become
your opium and you are stuck in a rot. If the judgement is true but you
reject it claiming that it was because of a certain 'prophecy' you are
also high on the opiate of religion. Analyze the case from its pure
legal, political and electoral angles and be informed.
The
little I know is that having the highest number of votes doesn't
necessarily win you an election, it takes more than that. I also know
that the Nigerian judiciary is very funny, sometimes it panders to
partisan politics as against jurisprudence. In Nigeria the judiciary
falls victim of willing and unwilling manipulation by the political
class.
Now if we allow religion to distract us from these sad
realities, we will not confront them frontally and call for the
neccesary changes. We have electoral bills waiting for presidential
assent so that our elections will be better, we have issues of fiscal
federalism, generation and distribution of resources, security etc that
need radical attention, but religion seem to numb people from the pains
these things inflict on us. Don't let your religion be your opium, think
it through, God gave us brain and that's one thing that has stood human
beings above other animals.
Look at the electricity that your
life depends on, it didn't come out from 21 days fasting and prayer, it
didn't come from first fruits and tithe( as good as these are), it came
from THINKING BRAIN. The car you drive, the phones you use, imagine
your life now without phone, internet, car, fans etc, these things
didn't come by 'prophecy', they came from THINKING BRAINS, God blessed
us with them through people who used their THINKING BRAIN. Such people
did not make their religion an opium, you too shouldn't.
Let me come and be going
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Posted by naijafm, Published at 3:15 AM and have
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