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Feb. 1, 2007 From the beginning of time religion was described as "the opium of the masses". In today's world whose evolution has over time taken along with it the good, the bad, and the ugly phases, religion more than any other thing including politics and sports (most especially football) has played a significant role in the development of man and his environment, for good or ill. Religion has played the role of a unifying factor of the inhabitants of the universe, and at the same time, it has destroyed souls by acting as the disunifying factor. Because of the existence of the Most High which every religion seeks to worship and adore, followership of every faith tends to interpret it's version of the ecumenical constitutions: the christians the Holy Bible and the moslems the Holy Koran. In the world at large, the number of religious denominations may not be computed, but all boil down to the glorification and acknowledgement of the existence somewhere of a Higher Master who decides and presides over our affairs here on earth, far from our reach with unchallengeable power and cosmic force! As a christian I believe in one and only true living God, Jehovah, One that sent His only begotten Son to come down here and sacrifice His life for the liberation and redemption of mankind. The difference between christianity and islam lies only in certain interpretations. Followers of the christian doctrine go to Jerusalem for holy pilgrimage while those of the Islamic faith go to Saudi Arabia for their own pilgrimage. While christianity could be said to be multi-dimensional and without central leadership islam has one abiding doctrine in arabic which everyone is bound to follow without question. So the later could then be said to be centrally dictatorial in outlook with little or no room for modification. While islam is known as a 'religion of peace' christianity prides itself as a religion of truth and light. In the christendom it is only the Roman Catholic church that has a traditional hierarchy that runs smoothly for ages with little or less acrimony. The leadership in Rome, the Holy See, maintains close cult-like authority and scrutiny with responsibility exuding uncommon organization and high-level ecumenical sophistry that runs down to the lowest reverend father in the remotest village anywhere in the world. In the Roman catholic church, it must be emphasized, one sees occasional flashes of dissent or cannon disloyalty like some ordained priests doing some suspicious miracles and some others betraying their imposed status of celibacy but by and large the Vatican is a study in human religious organization that is near-perfect! The same cannot be said about the much-room pentecostal ministries sprouting at very nook and cranies in Nigeria and elsewhere with some in a one-room apartment where most pastors preach prosperity and live ostentatious lifestyles that call their calling to question. Dubious miracles are performed and celebrated as though miracles give credence to their profiles. For them church business goes beyond the spiritual realm to accommodate mundane realities or outright hedonism. The arrogant and un-Christ-like attitudes of some these new-generation pastors make one see them as Mammon heads and therefore doubt their pastoral credentials. The Holy Bible spoke prophetically about today's false prophets which it says bear forms of Godliness but ignorant of it's true meaning thereof. Today some pastors and other so-called men of God acquire and use other powers outside the true power of the true God. In the search for solutions to people's spiritual and physical problems and needs these merchants of spiritual prostitution go out of their way to seek powers from dark forces far from those of the Lord of Host. In their desperate bid for recognition and relevance they abuse the Holy Bible in interpretation and content. Their skewed views run counter to well-known biblical truths and immutable words. When His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI who succeeded the late epitome of spiritual charisma Pope John Paul 11 went to his native Germany earlier last year he unwittingly stirred a controversy by declaring in one of his homilies that late Prophet Mohammed was a jihadist who revelled in 'holy wars' qouting an ancient philosopher who opined that Islam was a religion of 'blood and conflict'. The statement which the Vatican later played down provoked violent demonstrations across the muslim world including Nigeria claiming a number of innocent lives. Though the papacy later modified the Pope's expressed opinion the damage had been done. Core extremist moslem countries are sometimes very difficult to placate or rein in in the new world order. Talk about Iran, Syria, Indonesia, Jordan and Palestine. Osama Bin Laden is not a christian and his Al Queda terrorist network loyalists are muslims who invoke "Allahu Akbar" in waging their wars against the "infidels". Those suicide bombers who rattled the world and the super power syndrome in 2001 by hijacking flights and ramming them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the free world were trained and brainwashed into believing that they were matyrs for a cause most of them could not have understood. That is the problem with Islam: teaching their followers that in the event of death Allah will welcome them as combatants of faith and just cause. Matrydom transcends such manipulated version of the holy koran. Beheading or shopping off an arm of the infidel is seen in some moslem countries like Saudi Arabia as a just punishment for crimininality like drug running. Yet these nations share in the moral pollution of the larger world! I have been to some northern cities in Nigeria during my school days on holidays and I know how the religion of islam passionately shape the mentality of people -- young and old alike. I have some moslem friends around the world, those who understand the need for religious tolerance. But in Nigeria sectarian violence between moslems and christians have claimed thousands of lives. A religion that claims peace as it's basis for existence finds it difficult sometimes to accommodate divergent religious views; sometimes little disagreements like using a torn piece of the holy koran in error to wrap up an object had snowballed into an explosion of agression that reverberated far beyond the point of occurence with human lives and properties wasted in misplaced vengeance. Islam may be a religion of peace but it's intolerance of other faithfuls cannot be a virtue worth inculcating on those who profess it and those who admire it. When one remembers Salman Rushdie and his 'Satanic Verses' controversial book for which a "fatwa" was imposed on him the argument here becomes apt. The foreign religion imported from the middle east ought to be reformed; yes it's high time it was reformed to bring more appeal and modernism to bear on it's practise and followership. I do not see why the holy koran should be written in arabic without translations in other languages. The changing times, tides and evolution of man calls for some form of reforms in islam to accommodate certain lapses in the religion, a great faith like christianity whose importance or global influence and affluence cannot necessarily be under-estimated here. ------------ About the author: Sunny Chris Okenwa is a new U-K contributor based in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire. Email: soco_abj_2006_rci@hotmail.fr Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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