Africa: Destroyed by the gods – Free Chapter

Posted by By Akogun Akomolafe at 30 March, at 11 : 07 AM Print

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Chapter 3: Stop teaching the bible to children

 

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“You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?” – Mark Twain

“The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. Yet this is trash that the Church imposes upon the world as the Word of God; this is the collection of lies and contradictions called the Holy Bible! This is the rubbish called Revealed Religion!

“Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system…The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion.” – Thomas Paine

“In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don’t grow out of it in the fullness of time, our nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.

“I had always been scrupulously careful to avoid the smallest suggestion of infant indoctrination, which I think is ultimately responsible for much of the evil in the world. Others, less close to her, showed no such scruples, which upset me, as I very much wanted her, as I want all children, to make up her own mind freely when she became old enough to do so. I would encourage her to think, without telling her what to think.” – Richard Dawkins

“I charge and purpose to prove, from unimpeachable texts and historical records, and by authoritative clerical confessions, beyond the possibility of denial, evasion, or refutation:

1. That the Bible, in its every Book and in the strictest legal and moral sense, is a huge forgery.”
2. That every Book of the New Testament is a forgery of the Christian Church; and every significant passage in those Books, on which the fabric of the Church and principal dogmas are founded, is a further and conscious later forgery, wrought with definite fraudulent intent.”
3. Especially, and specifically, that the famous “Petrine text” – “Upon this Rock I will build my church” – the cornerstone of the gigantic fabric of imposture, – and the other, “Go, teach all nations,” – were never uttered by the Jew Jesus, but are palpable and easily-proven late Church forgeries.
4. That the Christian Church, from its inception in the first little Jewish-Christian religious societies until it reached the apex of its temporal glory and moral degradation, was a vast and tireless forgery mill.” – Joseph Wheless, ‘Forgery in Christianity,’ pp. xviii-xix.

In the 1980s while working as a Research Supervisor for a Marketing Research firm, I used to travel to the northern part of Nigeria a lot.

That was in pre-Boko Haram era when Nigeria was still Nigeria, and the northern part of the country was a blissful paradise.

Northern Nigerian cities like Kaduna, Sokoto, Jos, Kano, and Bauchi were especially delightful and pleasing to the eye. Many of them, like Kano, are very ancient indeed and they have history that stretches back many, many centuries.

Few people who visited Jos in those days would not have been wowed by its sheer beauty. Perched atop the undulating, scenic Jos plateau, Jos was simply enthralling in his majestic beauty. The beauty of Jos plus its mild climate gives one an experience to take to the grave.

Sadly, Boko Haram has devastated much of Northern Nigeria with a violence unseen since the Biafran War of 1967-1970.

I loved the north of those days. Food was plentiful and cheap. There was unsurpassed security of life and property. Life was pursued at slower pace than the rat-race people ran in the southern part of Nigeria.

But as our elders say, one thing spoils the beauty of the flying rat: its arms are longer than its legs.

I found the feudalism of the north most appalling.

The first time I saw it at close quarter was when a nasty din woke me up from my hotel room on my first night in Sokoto, the capital of the northern state that bears its name.

Peeping out, I saw armies of young boys banging their bowls together moving from house to house.

On enquiry I was told that they are almajiris, or students of a Koranic school. I learnt that these children are kept at these schools by a teacher (Mallam/Sheikh) who provides them with lodging and gives them instructions in Koranic and Islamic studies.

The children are made to chew and pour Koranic verses day and night. They have been turned into pure automatons that can think of little else outside of what has been crammed into their impressionable brains.

In return the children have to provide food for their teacher. They do these by begging for alms – in cash or kind.

Sometimes, a well-heeled philanthropist, who wants to thank Allah for his blessings, will take over the school, and he will be responsible for its maintenance which include the upkeep of the instructor and the children.

Where I come from in the south, begging is heavily frowned upon. It is considered a big shame for a member of one’s family to be seen begging.

Only the infirmed, who are without family, are supposed to beg.

A few months ago, I had an experience that both shocked and shook me severely. It also reminded me of my experience in Sokoto.

A video documentary expedition took me to Amanfrom, a suburb of Accra. Part of the activities took us to a school where a Bible-reciting contest took place.

I watched in horror as school children were turned into mindless Zombies and awarded marks and gifts for abilities to recite, machine-like, quotations from the Christian Bible.

I was totally flabbergasted that these types of stupid brain-washing go on in our schools, and that these types of mindless exercises are what goes for education in our dear country.

It is sad to see that Christians have been allowed to extend their propaganda to our schools, and allowed to pollute the minds of our children with their special brand of lies.

I have no problem with anyone who takes it upon himself to believe in whatever he fancies for religion.

I have problem however when the Christians take it upon themselves to force-feed children (our future leaders) with their jejune nonsense.

And I find it most abhorrent to see little innocent children being exposed to the Christian lies, absurdities, indecencies, violence and atrocities at such impressionable ages.

What exactly is the point of teaching the Christian Bible in our schools? How do we tell our children to abhor lies and then turn around to feed them on lies from the Christian Bible?

How do we expect our children to be moral, ethical and upright when we forced them to read all the lies, forgeries, absurdities, atrocities, larcenies, pornography and wholesome violence of the Bible?

I do not know why the Christians fail to realize the enormous damage they do to their god by their claim that he commanded to be written, the pack of lies and absurdities we see in the Bible.

The simple truth is that from beginning to the end, the Christian bible is a pack of lies and forgeries.

In the age when few can read and write, dishonest and lying priests can claim that their book was inspired by a god, and that it was free of errors. Today, only a dishonest, lying and ignorant priest can make this claim.

The history of the how the Bible was compiled is too well documented for anyone to claim that it was inspired by a god, even a dreadful one like Jehovah.

There are enough historical documents available (for free) to debunk the Christian’s claim about the accuracy of their Bible.

In philosophy, when the premise of a proposition is false, it is a given that the proposition cannot be correct.

If the Christian Bible opens with a lie (as it demonstrably does), we can safely assume that the whole pack was false, since the whole edifice was constructed on the original lie.

Let us examine some of the lies on which the Christian religion is founded.

The God Forgery
“The first sentence of the translated Bible is a falsification and forgery of the highest importance. We read with awed solemnity of faith: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ (Gen. 1.1). The Hebrew word for God is el; the plural is elohim, gods. The Hebrew text of Genesis 1.1 reads: “Bereshith bara elohim,” etc., – “in-beginning created gods the heavens and theearth.” And in the same chapter we read in Hebrew honestly translated, thirty times the word “elohim,” gods, to whom are attributed all the works of creation in six peculiar “days” of Genesis. This is plainly evident from the Hebrew texts of Genesis I, which even false intention could not hide in translation, “And-said elohim (gods), Let-US-make man (adam)  in-image-OUR, afterlikeness-OURS” (1,26). And when “adam” had eaten of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, “the Lord God” said, “Behold, the-man has become like one of US, to know good and evil” (III, 27). And when the Tower of Babel was abuilding, “The Lord (Hebrew Yahveh) said… Come, let US go down,” etc. And thus, some 2,570 times the plural, elohim, gods, is used in the Hebrew text, but is always falsely translated “God” in the false singular, when speaking of the Hebrew deity, Yahveh.

The Adam Forgery

“There was no first “Adam,” according to the Hebrew texts of the story. The word adam in Hebrew is a common noun, mean man in a generic sense; in Genesis 1,26, we have read: “And elohim (gods) said, Let us make adam (man)”; and so “elohim created ha-adam (the-man); … male and female created he them” (1,27). And in the second story, where man is first made alone: “Yahveh formed ha-adam (the-adam) out of the dust of ha-hadam – the ground” (11, 7). Man is called in Hebrew adam because formed out of adamah, the ground; just as in Latin man is called homo because formed from humus, the ground, – homo ex humo, in the epigram og Father Lactantius… The forging of the common noun adam into a mythical proper name Adam, was a post-exilic fraud in the forging of the fictitious genealogies from “in the beginning” to Father Abraham.” …” – (Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 75-77.)

The Abraham Forgery

“In popular belief the story of Abraham is very simple. His original name was Abram, and he lived in “Ur of the Chaldees”; but God called him and change his name to Ab-ra-ham, which is the Hebrew for “the father of many peoples. Blessed are the ignorant, for they have no difficulties. The word Abraham does not mean “the father of many peoples.” No Hebrew scholar can make it mean anything. It has no meaning in Hebrew. Abram may have come from Ur; but it was not a “city of the Chaldees” until ages afterwards.” (The Story of Religious Controversy by Joseph McCabe, pp. 126-133).

New Testament Forgeries

“The simple fact is that the New Testament, as we know it, is a helter-skelter accumulation of more or less discordant documents, some of them probably of respectable origin but others palpably apocryphal, and that most of them, the good along with the bad, show unmistakable signs of having been tampered with. ‘No Biblical scholar of any standing today,” says Weigall, “whether he be a clergyman or a layman, accepts the entire New Testament as authentic; all admits that many errors, misunderstandings and absurdities have crept into the story of Christ’s life and other matters.” Treatise On The Gods,” H. L. Mencken, pp. 209-220).

The Virgin Birth Forgery

“The most colossal of the blunders of the Septuagint translators, supplemented by the most insidious, persistent and purposeful falsification of text, is instanced in the false translation of the notoriously false pretended “prophecy” of Isaiah VII, 14 – frauds which have the most disastrous and fatal consequences for Christianity, and to humanity under its blight; the present exposure of which would instantly destroy the false faith built on these frauds.

The Greek priest who forged the “Gospel according to St. Matthew,” having before him the false Septuagint translation of Isaiah, fables the Jewish Mary yielding to the embraces of the Angel Gabriel to engender Jesus, and backs it up by an appeal to the Septuagint translation of Isaiah VII, 14: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel.” (Matt. V, 23.)

Isaiah’s original Hebrew, with the mistranslated words underscored, reads: “Henneh ha-almah harah ve-yeldeth ben ve-karath she-o Immanuel”; – which, falsely translated by the false pen of the pious translators, runs thus in the English: “behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isa. VII, 14.)

The Hebrew words ha-almah mean simply the young woman; and harah is the Hebrew past or perfect tense, “conceived,” which in Hebew, as in English, represents past and completed action. Honestly translated, the verse read: “Behold, the young woman has conceived – (is with child) – and beareth a son and calleth his name Immanuel.”

Almah means simply a young woman, of marriageable age, whether married or not, or virgin or not; in a broad sense exactly like girl or maid in English, when we say shop-girl, parlor-girl, bar-maid, without reference to or vouching for her technical virginity, which, in Hebrew, is always expressed by the word bethulah. But in the Septuagint translation into Greek, the Hebrew almah was erroneously rendered into the Greek pathenos, virgin, with the definite article ha in Hebrew, and e in Greek, (the), rendered into the indefinite “a” by latter falsifying translators… And Jerome falsely used the Latin word Virgo.

As early as the Second Century B.C., “ says the distinguished Hebrew scholar and critic, Solomon Reinach, “the Jews perceived the error and pointed it out to the Greeks; but the Church knowingly persisted in the false reading, and for over fifteen centuries she has clung to her error.” – Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity,” pp. 62-65

We have thus established the fact that the book Christians peddle as the word of their God is nothing but pack of consciously forged lies.

The stories that the Christian solemnly preach to their gullible congregation are mere collections and re-hashed stories, myths and legends from Babylon, Chaldean, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and other places the Hebrews collected from their wanderings around the ancient world.

It was a Roman emperor that called a conference which ratified the books collected them into the Bible. The Priests were inspired only by greed and desire to maximize their power and profit. You can read more about the conference here

The Christian Bible is not only a collection of dangerously forged lies; it contains enough indecencies that it should be kept away from decent people, especially our children.

My humble plea is that the Christian Bible should cease to be used as a moral guide for our children.

Pray, what morality are children supposed to learn from Biblical stories and quotes like:

1. Abraham marrying his father’s daughter – “And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.” – Gen 20:12.
2. Lot’s offers his two daughters to a mob – “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them good as is good in your eyes.” – Gen 19:8.
3. Two daughters of Lot seduced their father – Gen 19:30-38.
4. Zipporah has to circumcise her son in order to restrain the Lord from killing Moses – “And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.” – Exodus 4:24-26.
5. Ammon ravishes his sister Tamar – 2  Sam.  13:1-14.
6. Women conceive after interviews with prophets – Manoah’s wife (Judges xiii, 3, 6, 9, 24). Elkanah’s wife (Sam I, 1, 2, 17, 20) the Shunnamite and Elisha ( Kings II, iv, ii, 16,  17).
7. Kind David is revived by a virgin – Kings I, I, 1-4.
8. “I will send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children,” and “ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters.” But if you humble your uncircumcised heart, God won’t do all these nasty things to you. It’s your choice. Leviticus 26: 16-41.
9. “The spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson and he found a new jawbone of an ass … and took it, and slew 1000 men therewith.” Judges 15:1415.
10. God offers David a choice of punishments for having conducted the census: 1) seven years of famine (1 Chr.21:12 says three years), 2) three months fleeing from enemies, or 3) three days of pestilence. David can’t decide, so God chooses for him and sends a pestilence, killing 70,000 men (and probably around 200,000 women and children). 2  Samuel  24: 13.
11. Anyone who adds to the words in Revelation (or to the rest of the Bible?) will be struck with plagues, and anyone that tries to remove anything from it will have his name removed from the book of life. Rev. 22:18-19.

The mind, they say, is a terrible thing to waste. Why would a god give us a brain if he did not mean for us to use them?

Why is it too difficult for some human beings to open their minds to knowledge rather than holding on to dated dogmas?

Few years, scientists told us that there existed nine planets in our solar system. Today, armed with better knowledge, they acknowledged their error and revised their long-held opinions.

Why are the so-called Christians unwilling to admit that knowledge can never be static?

Finally, I commend those that seek honest truth to read Buddha: “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

 

About the Author

Femi Akomolafe is a passionate Pan-Africanist. A columnist for the Accra-based Daily Dispatch newspaper and ModernGhana, and Correspondent for the New African magazine, Femi lives in both Europe and Africa and writes regularly on Africa-related issues for various newspapers and magazines.

Femi was the producer of the FOCUS ON AFRICANS TV Interview programme for the MultiTV Station.

He is also the Man and Machine Coordinator at Alaye Dot Biz Limited, a Kasoa-based Multimedia organization that specializes in Audio and Video Production. He loves to shoot and edit video documentaries.

His highly-acclaimed books (“Africa: Destroyed by the gods,” “Africa: It shall be well,” “18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories” and “Ghana: Basic Facts + More”) are available for sales at the following bookshops/offices:

1. Freedom Bookshop, near Apollo Theatre, Accra.
2. WEB Dubois Pan-African Centre, Accra
3. Ghana Writers Association office, PAWA House, Roman Ridge, Accra.
4. Afia Beach Hotel, Accra

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