stories and histories RELIGION: A CRITICAL LOOK (PART SIX) ~ FAITH AND REASON

Adeyemi Olajide » Religion: A critical Look (part six) ~ Faith and Reason

Three propositions to help you understand Faith and Reason.

1. Where reason is able to reach, faith strictly speaking is not needed.

2. Whatever faith can grasp should be opened to the interrogation of reason.

3. If Reason is from God and Faith is a gift from same God, then what God enables us to know through Reason should not contradict what he reveals to us through Faith.

The three propositions above are worth keeping constantly in mind. Read each again slowly and think through them because if we understand them very well, many of the problems and abuses we have in religion will give way.

I will give insight to each proposition using examples.

On proposition number 1.

"Where reason is able to reach, faith is strictly speaking not needed."

Example 1:

Some years ago, there was a trending video of a burning building close to a church in Lagos Nigeria, we saw members of that particular church praying and lifting up their bibles as they call on God to quench the fire. Unfortunately for them, God did not quench the fire.

You know why?

It is an insult to the giver of reason the moment you surrender to faith what ordinarily should have been handled by reason.

Example 2:

Just last month in Zambia, a neighbouring country to Malawi, a pastor called James Sakara asked his church members to bury him alive because he believed that after three days he will rise like Jesus and come back to the church to live for ever.

The pastor was so passionate about this. He convinced his members that Christ words, "do this in memory of me" was referring to the resurrection.

Well, those members of the church whom he was was able to convince dug a grave, tied him up, put him inside the grave and buried him alive.

After three days, the members were wondering why their pastor had not risen. So, they went to the grave, and after digging out the body, they found their pastor's dead body already decaying.

They even started doing some prayers and what they may call spiritual exercise to complete the process of his resurrection. Unfortunately for them, the pastor remained dead.

As you would have suspected, I never believed the story at first. The news was everywhere, but I was like: this can't be real. Then, I spoke to a Zambian who is a friend of mine and he confirmed it to be true and that one of those that buried the man alive is already in police custody. It is so unbelievable, but as I said in my earlier series, religion is notoriously powerful.

Friends,

With faith alone and total neglect of reason, people become fanatics.

With reason alone and with total neglect of faith, people become agnostics.

Key point is: Balance.

It is a very dangerous thing if the pastor or priest in your church sees every damn thing under the lense of FAITH ALONE.

This is why church members have eaten grasses in the past, all in the name of faith. Some have been sprayed with insecticides, in the name of deliverance. Some pregnant women have died or are with complications because instead of going to hospital for antenatal care they are going to church where the pastor will not only use Goya oil to rub and caress their protruded stomachs but will order them to drink the content of the entire bottle so as to make the baby to slippery come out.

You will do yourself a favour the moment you start understanding that the reason God gave you sense is so that you won't be senseless.

To be continue. . .

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