Humanity has found itself in one mess after another because we replaced critical thinking with superstitious beliefs rooted in religion. Things will only go as well as they can if we adopt a habit of critical reflection.
In addressing my topic, I will use Christianity as a case study for two reasons.
Firstly, because I am a former Christian and know Christianity better than other religions, and secondly because Islam is the brainchild of Christianity. If you do the research, you will find that there is not much difference between Islam and Catholicism. Islam is basically the same ideology with a touch of adaptation into Arabic culture.
My voyage of discovery started with an in-depth analysis of the Christian bible, and it had five stages:
(1) Atavistic Stage
This occurs when someone in a religious African society purges themselves of Christian beliefs and needs to find solace. They then go back to their roots as if they were returning to their childhood. Some people get stuck in this stage but, if you are a critical thinker you will realise that all religions are the same – including traditional African religion. They all fill the mind with superstitions and false explanations of the origin of the universe. However, progressive thinkers advance to the next stage.
(2) Skeptic Stage
In this stage, progressive thinkers understand that traditional religion is no better than any other. Religions come in different cultural, tribal and racial forms, but they are all birds of a feather. So you start questioning religion itself. But if you are not a serious researcher, and an avid radical and pragmatic logician, you will be forced to retreat by three heavy forces. These are:
Family pressure
Members of a religious family will often see the abandonment of religion as insubordination to the family’s values. Family is the leading agent of socialisation and has great force, especially in Africa where communalism is cherished. This form of pressure will take someone back to Christianity faster than any other factor. It takes real strength to resist it and many people give in because they feel the struggle is not worth it.
I had to ask my own father when I was being treated scornfully – “Was your father a Christian?” He said no. So I then asked him – “Did my grandfather treat you like this when you left traditional religion for Christianity?” My father has still not answered my question, and this has increased my dislike of Christianity and of religion in general.
Ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments
These arguments relate to the origin of things. Where does the universe come from? Many people in the skeptic stage struggle to answer this question, but religious people don’t know the answer themselves. They simply resort to biblical creation theory. But if you say that everything that exists was created, you ought to ask who created the creator? It is better and more honourable to acknowledge that you don’t know where the universe came from. It is illogical to use the bible as proof of the claims made in the bible itself.
The connection factor
Many critical thinkers are forced to return to religion if some person in authority won’t help them unless they do become religious again. This is so common in Nigeria that Fela Kuti condemned it in his music. Re-conversion through undue influence can include threats and victimisation and, just like family pressure, is hard to resist because of the need to escape poverty and survive. After all, becoming a freethinker doesn’t put food on one’s table.
(3) Agnostic Stage
I used pragmatic logic to overcome the challenges of Skepticism and the same logic made me refuse to call myself an atheist. I wanted to avoid the fallacy of the Appeal to Ignorance. This states that something doesn’t exist because it hasn’t been proved to exist, or that it exists because it hasn’t been proved not to exist.
So it is a mistake to claim that God does not exist because no one has proved that God does exist. It follows from this that it is better to identify as an agnostic than as an atheist. Of course, many self-identified agnostics have the habits and attitudes of atheists. They just like to appear to be logical. Many of them remain at the agnostic stage, but some develop to the next stage.
(4) Atheist Stage
This is the stage where a person chooses to take an unapologetic stance of saying that there is no God. People mostly do this when they are finally independent from their family.
(5) Apatheist Stage
While moving from stage one to the apatheist stage, a thinker’s everyday life is filled with arguments about religion. The thinker is either trying to refute the scornful responses of the majority religious population, or trying to enlighten people so that they too become critical thinkers. This puts him at loggerheads with people.
However, the stage in which he feels like talking about God is irrelevant and is not worth his time. He should instead take the opportunity to think about the ideal of humanism which he must surely have acquired during the Skeptic, agnostic or atheist stages.
In order to find meaning and purpose in their lives, Skeptics, agnostics, atheists and apatheists adopt humanism. Any personal tendency towards freethought will often settle on humanism. Freethinkers are inclined to transfer the affection which they previously had for the supernatural to their fellow human beings. In this case, critical thinking replaces the prayers which they were accustomed to. This, in summary, is what modern humanism is all about.
It is the replacement of their love for the supernatural with love for their fellow human beings that makes freethinkers humanitarians.
By Obasi Ikechukwu