In many cases, other opposing beliefs are outlawed, I have never seen any social political organization or movement as discriminatory and divisive like religions adopted by the political authorities of the day!
As a child I was told and believed hell is a place God created for sinners to burn eternally. I was religiously blind and specifically Anglican foolish. Every religion came as a political conquest and business voyage, with lots of hybridized myths and fear of eternal punishment to scare people off being rebellious to colonial dogma.
The things all the foreign religion have in common are rape, looting, burning of our medical and history books, kidnapping our inventors, mavericks, geniuses,slaughtering Africans like animals for being traditional and refusing colonial dogmas, blackmailing our heritage and tradition as demonic, slave masters' ancestors were called lords, prophets, healers and saviors while ours we labelled as satan, idol, magicians and demons.
The blackmail is so deep that the foreign religion enforcers tell their subjective followers that the believers of other religions will go to hell because their prophets and savior are not approved by the supreme God and it is only the one proposed by them n enforced with cruelty that is permissible and approved by God.
Apparently, a divide and rule tactics that will perpetually make people see themselves superior and spiritually privileged (grace of God ) while other non believers or adherents of other beliefs are regarded as inferior and and sentenced to eternal burning place. in fact, it is considered an abomination to be their friends or get acquainted with them for any purpose, as they are regarded as unclean, filthy, unholy and evil, they are the chosen ones while others are lost and forbidden because they innocently followed their parent/ancestors traditions.
In many cases, other opposing beliefs are outlawed, I have never seen any social political organization or movement as discriminatory and divisive like religions adopted by the political authorities of the day!
Before the word hell fire got smuggled into the bible like several other non Hebrew words and doctrine; which always represent whatever the current political hegemony wants to infuse into the state approved religion to control the working class. Hellfire was Gehenna in Greek, which means "Valley of Hinnom" in Hebrew, it was a grave site, dump site and valley of burnt offerings, which is now a beautiful ancient city in Jerusalem, south of mount zion.
Gehenna was used as a metaphor that represents destination of the wicked. It was never an unseen or spiritual location revealed by prophets of old but originally a grave and dump site.
The Kabbalah, the ancient Jewish tradition of mystical interpretation of the bible explains it as a "waiting room" (translated as an "entry way") for all souls (not just the wicked ones meant to burn forever). The overwhelming majority of rabbinic thought maintains that people are not in Gehenna forever; the longest that one can be there is said to be twelve months!
But President James of England whose perversion and corruption is widely known, had to create different interpretation to scare Africans and sustain the global religiopolitical empire led by europeans but mostly, british via slavery and missionary when the exclusivity attached to Jesus as the only form of accepted pagan offering or human ritual in the world wasn't working enough.
They needed damning and dreadful eternal consequences to drive home their points with a relatable lexicon like HELL FIRE rather than "Gehenna" or "Valley of Hinnom" to establish their mind control and fearmongering tactics, a necessary propaganda with the political end of covering up the massacre of 250 Protestants burnt at the stake at the order of Queen Mary 1, hence the notorious nickname "Bloody Mary" during her short reign, consequently, it made the ruling class fall out of favor with the puritans and calvinists, whom were rebelling against the theocratic oppression of Anglican bishops, the political hierarchy and unjust benefits attached to their offices.
President James realized that to make african people subjective to their colonial/slavery dogmas, there must be a new interpretation of the sacred scrolls. It was used to control the citizenry, for the fear of hell is the beginning of African blind loyalty to western culture,paganism and slavery.
From time immemorial, political Leaders always use religion to pacify the masses’ revolutionary anger, subjugate their rights and dissuade them from mass rebellion or protests.
Socialist revolutionary, theoretician and philosopher Karl Marx perfectly posit in the critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy of right - Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.
Africans fervently clung to their beliefs even on the slave ship and in the slave camps administered by missionaries, until they were killed, publicly raped and made to believe in a burning furnace for activists, rebels or any dissent in the slave plantation or protectorate against orders of the so called spiritual book which was actually written by poets and writers approved by government of the day for the purpose of control of black man and foreigners.
Recently, president trump of the disunited state of America went to the front of the episcopal church in Washington, shoved the priest out of the way then posed for a picture with a bible, right after he ordered fierce and murderous military clampdown on protesters just to score some points with gullible religious conservatives.
We must also not forget how Ebora of Owu, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo became Mathew studying Christian theology after several human rights violations like the massacre of innocent odi and zaki biam natives.
Lawrence Ifeanyi ugwuanyi, the failed governor of Enugu state needed just one mantra to sway the suffering people of Enugu : "Enugu is in the hands of God’. I spoke to over 500 electorates in the capital city before the last election. I queried why they want to give him a second chance, they pointed to multi million naira billboards screaming ‘Enugu is in the hand of God’. which is often interpreted as leaving governance for the creator, their infrastructural decay and economic hardship is spiritual and not the duty of their beloved gburugburu who always profess the same religion as majority of enugu state indigenes. There is no pr consultant in the world that would have proffered any better antidote than the religious opium served.
I hope we haven't forgotten the recent horrific but religious manipulation of dictator Buhari who met Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky at least three times In company of his beloved mini tyrant, kaduna state governor, el Rufai, before the presidential election in 2015,they grinned like a baby while taking pictures with him just to win the hearts of 12 million members of IMN ( Islamic movement of Nigeria ) led by the religious priest. Today el zakzaky is nothing but a common detainee languishing like every other random inmate in kaduna prison after four years of secret trial and detention in Buhari's backyard in aso rock. I stand to be corrected.
Father Edeh, a popular but wicked catholic priest, the founder of the pilgrimage center of Eucharistic adoration also known as the pilgrimage center for peace and reconciliation, founder of the notorious Madonna university, where he flogs students and staff with horse whips for not hastily obeying his orders, some very unlucky ones like the #Madonna7 gets detained in prison at a finger wave and ensured their bail was not honored by prison officials after a judge granted the bail,the mother and family of one of the detainee Chijoke Nnamani was molested and chased away at the school gate, several protest letter and press statements later the draconian ruler priest of the holy ghost congregation succumbed to the outcry on social media, yet none of the religious leaders or organization could lend a voice to the unprecedented and shameful tyranny by an academic administrator.
Majority of the working masses today, are passive and docile because the tenets of their religion says long suffering and hope in eternal reward in afterlife, they are admonished almost on daily basis, to make it their topmost priority rather than fighting or resisting oppression/slavery/injustice. In Fact many verses in the holy books admonished submission to oppressive authorities.
There are over thirty verses explicitly and literally supporting slavery and equate the obedience to slave masters as an act of piety which must imbibed by adherents, while some verses also expressly supports, corruption,killing of infants, incest, clamp down on protesters, lack of freedom of expression, violent dominance of foreigners and other ethnic groups.
There would have been no subjugation of black man if there was no fear of hell, forcefully driven into their psyche, the fear of hell and torture of slave masters are the reasons why africans fearfully became devout of foreign ideals and religion
Currently, Gehenna (Greek) valley of Hinnom (Hebrew) or Hell fire (English) is a beautiful stone city of antique and magnificent aesthetics, it is currently in Jerusalem, a city that boasts of several UNESCO approved world heritage sites! A town of mixed religion and even " world forbidden" atheists , hell fire is currently a place for wealthy tourists in the southern part of the Jerusalem city! It is very clean and tranquil. If you doubt me google is your friend, I envision hell fire to be very good for writing, meditation ,sightseeing and freaky escapades! I really want to go to hell fire Walahi I just can't afford the flight tickets!
Written by Banwo Olagokun