Kwame Gyan Writes: Sane People Lose Their Sanity When It Comes To Religion

*Many Of Us Do Not. We Just Ignore Him And Live Our Lives.

WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS! 

You thought Politics was, or will be what will destroy this country one day? Well, folks, Religion may do worse IF we are not careful. Sane people lose their sanity when it comes to religion - even though they may be the worse culprits in not adhering to the tenets of the very religion that makes them go crazy. We may want to pretend the under currents of religion are not as strong. But they are.

First of, I am not a supporter of these prophesies that have become like telenovelas that get aired once a year on December 31. I am not equipped in the works of the Spirit to identify charlatans and those that pretend to do His work and those who truly do His work. I won't pretend I know. I often will use my common sense to decipher what I hear and move on with my life. I have had prophesies made about me before. Some I believed. Others I did not. It's religion. It's about faith. Beliefs. The individual. If you don't believe, you don't.

That does not however give anyone any reason to break the laws of the land. Nothing justifies that. If you do not believe in what he has said, why can you not ignore him? News Flash! Not every Christian believes him nor the many others that speak of deaths and things that are more to the negativity than the positive.

Some of my Muslim brothers, some of whom I respected for their intellect, without a care about their religious beliefs, are out fanning indiscipline and endorsing violence because a pastor of a faith they do not believe in has suggested that the leader of their faith will kick the bucket. Again, let me reiterate, you do not have to believe him if you don't. Many of us do not. We just ignore him and live our lives. To fuel this lawlessness in the name of radicalism and whatever motivations the learned ones among you are leading the not so learned is sad - very sad.

Worse, some of you are mixing religion with politics. It is at this point that I wonder what your true motives are - the mention of your religious leader, or the fact that the pastor in question has made his support for a certain party public? I would be happy if we left the politics out. Every political party in this country is made up of people from different religions, etc. It therefore makes no political sense to even drag this along those lines.

Should we as a people find a way to deal with religion and all its attendant challenges in a more holistic manner? Yes we should. Until then we should not be seen to be encouraging lawlessness and behaviours that simply drag us back and sow seeds of division, fear, hatred, and backwardness in our Lives.

Happily, there are some voices out there that are discerning and rising about the needless radicalism and partisan-infused encouragement of behaviours that are inhumane, non-Ghanaian.

We are better than this. Way better.

PS:
Personally I make friends and see people without any care of their religion, race, sexual preferences, gender and any such descriptors - all I see is a human being. The rest may come later. Whiles at Legon, one of my three closet friends was Muslim. He became a part of my Christian family and all that mattered was our friendship. We will not eat a meal of pork together if Al-Saad was around because of his religion. We will not arrange any activities that required us all together on Friday afternoon because he had to go to the Mosque.

That respect was there and we remained brothers till Allah called him home. I was not in town when he passed. But guess what, my elder sister into whose family he got accepted went to his funeral on the Sunday he was buried - yes, she left Church to go for his funeral.

If we can't look beyond religion to see the humanity in us then what is the point of praying to a God or Allah everyday? We are human beings first. That should matter in one way or another.