THE PROBLEM WITH RELIGIOUS MINDGAMES

By Yvonne Ijeoma

In the beginning of this year a “prophet” prophesied that there was going to be a plane crash in Nigeria and subsequently asked his followers to pray so that this plane crash will be averted. Fastings were declared and prayers were offered to god or gods to avert the impending calamity. The year is still quite young and this plane crash may never happen. If it does happen however, God will be glorified for giving the revelation. If it doesn’t happen he will also be glorified for being so kind and averting the crash because of the prayers.

This is why it is easy for every charlatan that decides to carry a bible or brand himself/herself a prophet to get away with whatever lie they decide to peddle to their followers in the name of prophecy or vision, same reason why they almost always will rather prophesy about negative things like death, accident, etc and afterwords they ask you to pray for an aversion. If after praying it still happens, the believer is content with the fact that the man of God said it will happen and will rather blame himself for not praying enough so that God will stop it from coming to pass, or for not sowing enough seeds to forestall the happenstance,

Anyway, I have never stopped wondering why religious people, especially those who believe in visions and prophesies don’t ask why a god will rather show his people an impending doom and expect them to beg him to prevent it before he does. I’m guessing he has a weird sense of humour and likes to see people helpless, that is why the passage of the bible Isaiah 45:7 comes as no surprise to many of us, where God himself said he creates good and also makes evil, even the good witches in movies do only good things, how will good and evil be on the same plate?

What I find irksome the most is the fact that people want to crucify you for daring to question yourself about these things , like the mere fact of having a doubt about them means that something is wrong with you. It’s even worse when it is a woman doing the questioning. Not too long ago someone very close to me said to me, that how dare I question religion, that it is only a man that has such rights not a woman, as a woman is supposed to be prayerful and religious. I wonder who gave those standards, he almost sounded as though he sees what I see, he knows the problems of religious beliefs but has a problem with my guts for being a woman and calling it out.

I’ve had such experiences on two different occasions of men pissed about my stance or opinion about religion, I could see clearly that they had a problem more with my gender than with what I was saying/questioning..In a society like ours where women are supposed to appear demure, some men just can’t stand a woman who openly criticises religion.

Sadly even some of the men who have known the lies of religion will want a religious woman for a partner, but won’t want their daughters to be religious.
Confused much?!

Not too long ago, I had to sit down to a boring lecture on how a woman should be a prayer power house of her family. Infact they made it sound as if being anything different from these set standards is a sin punishable by death. Maybe it is, because I remember that such women have been branded witches and killed in their numbers in the not too distant past.

I guess this present day irreligious women are the lucky ones after all. It is no news that women suffer the most with regard to religious laws yet it is women who uphold these things the most, yet we are surprised when a woman successfully extricates herself from that which seeks to enslave her completely, why are such women vilified rather than applauded???

I’m sorry my feminist side took over for a minute.

The earlier people understand that these are just mind games that these prophets play and that they also enjoy keeping them on their toes by inducing constant fear, the earlier they will liberate themselves from the opium called religion.

(c) Yvonne Ijeoma 2021