Ibadan 

University Humanist Society

Is Religion the Foundation for Morality?

Peter Adegoke

Some apologists of Religion have posited that morality is one of the factors for keeping Religions. According to them, man is a religious being and any attempt at obliterating this “religious genetic make-up” will spell doom for the society.

 After the killings at Columbine High School ins the Littleton, Colorado. Gay Bamer, a religious right Presidential-Candidate posited that if bible and prayer were returned to the schools in USA, the violence would cease.

Right here in Nigeria, most peddlers of religions have advocated for more religious teachings in our educational institutions but it often bothers me that these people seems not to be conscious of the fact that Nigerian Universities have the highest number of places of worships, religious fellowships and prayer groups in the world. Take for instance, Cambridge University has about 10, Yale ---- about 7, Oxford ---- around 5 but University of Ibadan, alone Nigeria has about 950 religious groups. Some might think I have exaggerated but I have not because all the Faculties (11 in all) have their fellowships; then all the departments in the University have at least one religious organ each. All the residential halls (11 in numbers) have at least 10 religious groups each.

All the state’s unions, ethnic unions, town unions and village unions have at least 1 religious group each. There are no known religious bodies (Christians, Muslims, Eckankars, Church of Mormons, Grail movement, Harikrishna etc.) that do not have at least 1 representative group on campus.

Mind you, these statistics are also replicated in all the Universities in Nigeria with the exception of those “strictly religious Universities” in the country. Despite all these over-dose of religious bodies, Nigeria rank number three on the global scale of corrupt countries of the world ---- Nigeria is the most corrupt black nation on planet earth.

Nigeria equally ranks number two on the list of the world’s poorest nations. It is only in “religious Nigeria” that you will have a Lawmaker who boasts to Journalists that he spends 63,000 Naira (474.58 dollars) on his pets daily, this is in a country where the average citizen spends below 1 dollar per day. According to Adams Oshiomole, Nigeria Labour Congress, President; ‘80% of Nigerians live below the poverty line’. A commissioner in Nigeria also boasts of spending close to 1.2 million Naira (9039.55 dollars) in a year telephoning. I am not sure if that honorable commissioner takes “telephoning” as a hobby.

Those religious fundamentalists, who claim that everybody is religious, are making a lot of Semantic mistakes. According to them all men must hold religiously to any idea he prefers. They even went further to state that humanism, agnosticism, and atheism are religious.

I agree that everyday colloquialism permits the trivial usage of some words. It is noticeable in such expressions as: “John hold on religiously to his belief that God does not exist”. The religious advocates posited that John must be religious for such statements; they then concluded from this weak analogy that all men including atheists and humanists are religious. This sounds funny to the averagely intelligent individual who knows that to say: “Sarah has a catholic view about life” does not imply that Sarah is a catholic. Meanwhile, the word “catholic” in the above sentence means ‘universal view’ and not the catholic faith.

So, I want the religious fundamentalists to note that because a man is said to hold an idea religiously does not implies that the man is religious. Let us go back to the main theme of this thesis; if the increase in religious groups in Nigeria’s Institutions of Higher learning can not stop the criminal records of Nigeria, then what usefulness has religion got.

What morality can religion bring with its immoral teachings of hatred, genocide, slavery and segregation? According to Baptist preacher Reverend Fred Phelps, “you can’t preach the Bible without preaching hatred”.

Gary L. Bennett in his article entitled “Preventing School Violence: Is Religion the Answer?” note that:

“The Bible is full of episodes of mass murder; some ordered by God (see some Joshua, Numbers, Samuel, and Esther). In Psalm 137:9 we are urged to smash babies’ heads against the stones. In Exodus 32:27 we read,” Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man his guard by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate through the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour”. In Psalm46: 8 we read, “Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth…. One can’t dismiss this promotion ancient and archaic Old Testament God because in the New Testament we find Jesus telling us that he came not to send peace but a sword (Matthew10:34), and he urged his followers to buy Swords (Luke22:36)……Isaiah 45:7 and Lamentations 3:38 tell us that God created evil.

 If the Bible is literally true, then a case could be made that god is responsible for what happened at Columbine High School. Certainly he could have stopped the killers if he had wanted to. If he had wanted to. If a belief in God and regular prayer could stop violence then there would be peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland. (Gary L. Bennett, “Preventing School Violence: Is Religion the Answer?” Free Inquiry, Vol.19 No 4, Fall 1999, pp. 28 – 29.)

I also want to say to the religionists that if the monthly “Holy Ghost Night” prayer programme of the Redeemed Christian Church of God led by pastor E.A. Adeboye OFR--- which always have close to 2 million people in attendance could stop ritual killings, bribery and corruption, poverty, sickness, oppression, murder etc. then Nigeria would have become a paradise on earth.

If prayer is efficacious as the religionists posited, then the weekly Friday’s Prayer Vigil of about 30 million Nigeria’s name from the list of the most corrupt countries in the world. Zamfara State, a State in Nigeria that adopted the Sharia Laws as her legal code, jumped from Number 36 on the list Examination Malpractice Index (EMI) to the Number 1 on the list within a year of the application of the so called “holy law” (Sharia Law) --- Nigeria has 36 States. If corruption could increase with increase in religious awareness then what use has religion got to offer man? What good has Islam got to offer mankind? One of the greatest Arab Koran Commentators al-Razi, commenting on Sura 4: 24 of the Quran write,

“Mut’ah marriage involves a man hiring a woman for a specific amount of money, for a certain period of time, to have sex with her. The scholars agree that this Mut’ah marriage was authorized in the beginning of Islam. It is reported that when the Prophet came to Mecca to perform ‘Omrah, the women of Mecca dressed up and adorned themselves. The Companions complained to the prophet that they had not had sex for a long time, so he said to them: enjoy these women”

In the same Mishkat-ul-Masabih, we read,

“Ibn Masu’d reported: We were fighting along with the Messenger of Allah while (our) wives were not with us. We said should we not undergo castration? The Holy Prophet forbade us from that. Afterwards he made lawful Mut’ah Marriage. So all of us married a woman for a fixed term in a exchange term for a cloth. Afterward Abdullah lie servant of Allah) recited: “O these who believe! Do not make unlawful the good things, which Allah has made for you. (Sura 5: 67).” (Mishkat, Book 2, Hadith no 115.”

Do these instanced not show that Islam permits ‘prostitution?’ Islam supports war, slavery and other social vices. Remember, Islam does not support freedom to change from one religion (Islam) to another religion in fact, the punishment for that is death by beheading with a sword. The Koran says:

“They wish that you should reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus beyond equal on the same footing. So take not friends from them, till they emigrate in the way of Allah (to Muhammad). But if they turn back (from Islam), take hold of them and kill them, wherever you find them, and take not friends or helpers or helpers from them.” Surat Nisaa (women) 4:89 (Al – Hilali). Does this Quranic text supports, Human rights. No real Muslim can be a true Human Right activist and no true Human Right activist can be a real Muslim.

To conclude this thesis, I will like to state that religion has nothing to offer us but hatred, war and segregations. More than 80 million people die when the Church was ruling the world during the medieval period. 40 million people died in the World War under the Nazi German headed by Catholic Hitler. The German Army believed so much in God that all her soldiers had the sentence: “Gut Mit Uns” meaning “God With Us.” Let me use some brief Quotations from religious Hitler and his religious supporter to drive home my point that religion is a strong tool for oppression, war, hatred and segregation. In fact 99% of the known world despots, dictators and wicked leaders such as Idi Amin of Uganda, Mobutu Sese Seko, Sanni Abacha, Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini, and Goering etc. believe in God. Below are the quotations.

“God gave the saviour to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that (Hitler) was sent by God to save Germany”. ------ Goering

“His Holiness Pope Pius XI and the President of the German Reich, moved by a common desire to consolidate and enhance the friendly relations existing between the Holy See and the German Reich… Have agreed to the following articles.” ----- Opening of the 1933 concordat between the Holy See and the Hitler’s Reich.

“The Third Reich (Hitler’s Reich) is the first world power which not only acknowledges but also put into practice the high principles of the papacy.”  ----- From pious Papen, who made Hitler Chancellor and helped negotiate the concordat of 1933.

“Fuhrer, my Fuhrer, bequeathed to me by the Lord.”  -----Prelunch invocation of the German School Children.

“I may not be a light of the church, a pulpiteer, but deep down I am a pious man, and believe that whoever fights bravely in defense of a natural law framed by God and never capitulates will never be deserted by the lawgiver, but will, in the end, receive the blessings of Providence.” --------Hitler, in a 1944 speech.

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.” -----Statement by Hitler to General Gerhart Engel in 1941.

“While the regime is determined to carry through the political and moral purging of our public life, it is creating and ensuring the prerequisites for a really deep inner religiosity. Benefits of a personal nature, which might arise from a compromise with atheistic organizations, could out-weigh the results, which become apparent through the destruction of general religious-ethical values. The national regime seeks in both Christian confessions the factors most important for the maintenance of our Volkism. The struggle against a materialistic philosophy and for the creation of a true folk community serves the interests of the German nation as well as our Christian belief.”   ------Hitler, in his first speech to the Reichstag.

“According to standard biographies, the principal Nazi leaders were born, baptized and raised Christian. Most grew up in strict, pious households where tolerance and democratic values were disparaged. Nazi leaders of Catholic background included Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, and Joseph Goebbels.

Hitler did well in monastery school. He sang in the choir, found High Mass and other ceremonies intoxicating, and idolized priests. Impressed by their power< at one time considered entering the priesthood.

Catholic Rudolf Hoess, who as commandant at Auschwitz 2 – Burkinau pioneered the use of the Zyklon – B gas that killed half of all Holocaust victims, had strict Catholic parents.

Hermann Goering had mixed Catholic-Protestant parentage, while Rodulf Hess, Martin Bormann, Speer, and Adolf Eichmann had Protestant backgrounds. Not one of the Nazi leaders was raised in a liberal or atheistic family…”  --------- (adapted from the article of humanist Gregory S. Paul titled: “The Great Scandal: Christianity Role in the Rise of the Nazi Scandal”, Free Inquiry, Vol. 23 No. 4, Pg. 22).

“I learned much from the order of the Jesuits. Until now; there has never been anything more grandiose, on the earth, than the hierarchical organization of the Catholic Church. I transferred much of this organization into my own party.” -----Hitler, 1933.

I would like to end this thesis with Deuteronomy 7: 1-6,

“When the thy God shall bring thee into the land wither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Amorites and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them: nor show mercy unto them,

Neither shalt thou make marriages with them, thy daughter shalt not give them unto his son, his daughter shalt thou not take unto thy son.

“For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. ………………For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

The LORD did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people, for we were the fewest of all people.”

Does these texts suggests, tolerant, love, brotherhood of all mankind. Of course it does not.

Peter Adegoke is a member of the Nigeria Humanist Movement Nigeria, and a student of Philosophy at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.