By David G Maillu
Anyone who has attended a funeral function these days has certainly experienced the antagonizing time-consuming rituals given to the function. The worst is when a politician or a “born-again” speaker takes the microphone.
I attended one of them recently and when the “Reverend” preacher came to the time of praying he said something like this, “God, we thank you for the life of person who was full of faith in you. Now that the faithful person has gone, God let your hand rush to save the children from the mighty hand of Satan now setting himself ready to fill in the vacuum. Our God of love, we know that you create people to live a happy life without pains; but Satan creates pains and deceases to destroy your blessing. God, we accept that you are the giver of life; but now you have taken that life from us to your kingdom.”
The contradictory point indirectly made here is that when God wants to take life back he uses a killer decease and pain as an agent to bring that life back. That is, when we are alive we should thank God for giving us life and when we die we should thank God for taking our life away.
But how on earth can the Reverend claim that only Satan is responsible for creating pain and decease? This is someone who has virtually preached and converted thousands of souls in his long missionary work. Unfortunately and gravely so, on the ground that man has been preaching and converting people a pathological faith. It is a religion that is self-defeating because it stands out to be responsible for the person’s physical failures to solve problems. He is made to believe that the right medicine for his illness comes from God but not from human beings. He should shun from Satan and lay your treasures in heaven where rust and moths don’t reach. He is taught that this world is but only a passing station on our way to heaven where Satan, the king od pains, will be destroyed by the God of love and thereafter we shall live happily forever and ever
The Reverend gravely thought outside the commonsense world that, after all, there is nothing special about human death. Human beings die exactly the way the cows and goats and chickens that they slaughter die. The life of any human being is subjected to germs. Germs are not created by a special force called Satan but the same force that creates all other lives. Even that religion believes that Satan, the so-called rebellion angel in the name Lucifer, was created by God and if, by any means, God thought Satan has outlived his purpose the Almighty God should have destroyed Satan in a twinkling on an eye.
This religion tells people that all bad things on earth – be they disease, drought, famine, disagreements, human suffering, rape, irresponsibility and so on – are works of Satan. Cure? Praying and cursing Satan. That explains why some families refuse sending sick person to hospital. They believe that sickness is brought by Satan and the only way to take it away is through prayers.
But it is not only diseases but the whole of human suffering that is the responsibility of Satan. “Satan should be defeated, Shetani ashindwe! That’s their preaching which drives you to put the blame of all your problems on Satan.
This is a religion founded on a material God. It is spreading fast in this part of the world where, instead of people picking up arms to face economic problems with sheer work, they perceive those misfortunes as works of evil spirits and Satan. They resort to absolute faith in that material God and praying-day-and-night for miracles from God. As a working tool, faith in material God is a very powerful propaganda of creating an irresponsible society removed from natural demands that life is created by two opposing forces: – life and death, sick and healthy, love and hate, pain and pleasure, innocent and guilt, hot and cold, stupid and wise, positive and negative, responsible and irresponsible.
Because the so-called lower living beings do not believe in a material God that promises them an everlasting happy life in paradise after their death, they work hard struggling for their livelihood – animals, birds and insects. In any case, if paradise comes only after death, you should pay tax to the forces governing the world. If you kick a sharp object you shouldn’t blame your pain on anyone else but yourself for not seeing the object. The world in which we live is governed by clear planning and implementing the plan through hard work. Life on the planet earth is government by the law of swim or sink.
February 26, 2017