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| Ijabla |
(By Raymond Ijabla) – It's Time To Abandon The Belief In
Witchcraft Because Witches Don't Exist
Since declaring, I'm a humanist
and someone without religion, many respondents have asked if I
believe that witches, wizards, demons and evil spirits exist. Some asked,
"how do you decide what is right or wrong if you don't believe in
God?" I shall address the first part of these important questions in this
article and the rest in future articles.
Funke is a six-year-old girl who lives with her uncle
and his wife. She lost her parents in a car crash when she was only a few days
old. Uncle Segun and his wife, Ngozi, have been married for four years now but
have no children of their own. Ngozi has suffered recurrent miscarriages.
They have been to different churches and attended
various crusades and have done everything they have been told to do - from
fasting and prayers, anointing themselves with olive oil, tithing, to paying
all the special offerings specifically targeted at couples looking for the
fruit of the womb - to no avail. They even carry a white handkerchief that was
specially anointed by the General overseer of their church wherever they go. At
the end of a week-long session of prayers and fasting atop a hill known simply
as Oke, the word of the Lord came to their pastor - Funke is a witch sent by
the queen of the coast to destroy their lives. They thought, "Aha, that makes
sense.
Witches have many lives - no wonder she was the only
survivor in that fatal car crash." The pastor asks for a special donation
and organises a deliverance service (exorcism) for the little girl.
She confesses she is a witch even though she does not know what the word means.
She is subjected to months of intensive sessions of prayers and fasting in the
church each lasting several days at a time. She is beaten in the belief this
will drive out the evil spirits. The week she returns home, Ngozi has another
miscarriage and Funke is kicked out of their home. The neighbours have heard
stories and avoid Funke like a plague. None of her family members in the
village wants her because of the stories that have reached them. Funke now
lives on the street.
Lanre was a successful entrepreneur until his business
collapsed recently. This coincided with the time his elderly mother moved in to
live with him and his family after the death of his father. During a
deliverance service, the pastor receives a vision from God for Lanre - his
mother is a witch and is responsible for the collapse of his business. Without
a second thought, Lanre drives his mother out of his home and cuts all contacts
with her. Lanre's mother cannot understand what has come over her only child.
He receives a letter from his aunty a few months later
informing him of the death of his mother from a heart attack. Two lines in the
incisive letter struck him - "if your mother was truly a witch then why
did she not kill you in infancy? Why would someone who does not want you to
succeed in life spend all their resources to train and educate you, even
sending you to school abroad?" He paused for the first time to contemplate
the wisdom and truth in his aunty's words.
These are hypothetical situations, but they are not
dissimilar to many people's real life experiences. There's nothing in either
case that proves the involvement of witches. The truth is there's no evidence
that demons, evil spirits, mermaid spirit ("mammy water), the devil, the queen
of the coast, witches and wizards exist. There's as much evidence for them as
there is for unicorns or the Santa Claus.
The people who say witches exist have never seen one but
they know someone who knows another person that has seen a witch transforming into
a cat or a bird. Like faith healing and other miracles, these
transmogrifications have never been captured on camera, but considering how
frequently they are famed to occur one wonders why this is.
In anticipation of readers' reactions, it's important I
state now that the burden of proof is on he that makes a claim - please don't
ask me to prove that these entities do not exist because my response would be,
"prove to me that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not orbit the
Earth." If you say demons and witches exist, then bring forward your
evidence. Nightmares and bad dreams are not admissible. A child who bed-wets or
one who convulses is not demon possessed (even though the Bible suggests so).
Infertility, diseases or unemployment do not prove the existence of these
entities.
I don't believe in miracles or the supernatural.
Ultimately, there's an explanation for everything. Just because we can't
explain a phenomenon now doesn't mean you get to make up an explanation or
attribute it to the supernatural. Nor does it mean there won't be an
explanation in the future. No pastor has ever performed a miracle - most of
what they claim to be miracles are lies or carefully stage-managed
performances.
The rest of the time, their supposed miracles can be
explained by a knowledge of simple statistics - if you gather thousands of
people in an auditorium you are almost guaranteed to find at least one person
with a lump on their body, or someone looking for a job (not a surprise in a
country like ours with high youth unemployment), or another whose mother has
just died of cancer. If you type, "magic explained", into the search
box on YouTube you will find a dozen videos that explain the various tricks
deployed by magicians to confound their audiences.
I was blown away by the magic in this video when it was
broadcast live on the X-factor. If we change the venue to the church and
replace the magician with a pastor, we will encounter many gullible Christians
who are prepared to believe that a supernatural event (or a miracle) has just
happened.
Nigerians never question any statement that begins with,
"God said . . .", and the charlatans who exploit them know this.
Millions of Nigerian Christians believe their pastors have cured all kinds of
disease and raised dead people. Permit me to digress for a moment - I do not
understand the obsession with resurrection among Pentecostal Christians. What
is the point of death if God is just going to keep resurrecting dead people? If
He let them die in the first instance then why would He change His mind only to
let them die again from diseases, car crashes, religious violence? To me, a
miracle is growing an amputated limb or resurrecting someone who has been dead
(preferably buried) for several weeks. I am throwing an open challenge to all
Nigerian pastors - I will end my scepticism and worship your God if you perform
either or both of these miracles.
The belief in witchcraft is a powerful tool for mind
control. It has created problems in many homes and led to divorce, children
being estranged from parents, mutual distrust between friends, and the cases
presented at the beginning of this article exemplify what happens to many
families.
A documentary by
Stepping Stones in 2009 exposed how children in Akwa Ibom state are
subjected to gruesome physical and psychological abuse when they get labelled
as witches. In one case, a nail was driven into the skull of a
9-year-old girl. Women accused of witchcraft have been stripped of their
clothes, beaten and then burnt alive to death. A quick Google search will
reveal the most horrendous videos of how people suspected of being witches are
murdered in African societies including ours.
Nollywood, Mount Zion Film Ministries (famed for
productions such as "Agbara nla") and Pentecostal preachers like Helen
Ukpabio have entrenched the belief in witchcraft and evil spirits in the minds
of our people through their film industries. The entire doctrine of churches
like Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) is hinged on the notion of spiritual
attacks and generational curses. These have done nothing but produce a
generation of paranoid Christians.
I'm reminded of a story that happened in one of our
banks. A man who had just arrived in the banking hall asked the person at the
back of the queue: "are you the last person on the queue?", to
which the reply was, "I reject that in Jesus' name. I'm the first and not
the last, the head and not the tail." Nigerians became the laughing stock
of the world in 2009 when police (or members of a vigilante group, depending on
which version of the story you read) arrested a goat suspected of car theft in
Kwara state. Apparently, a man had turned himself into the goat to escape
arrest
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/4325377/Nigerian-police-hold-magic-goat-over-attempted-car-theft.html).
Tormented by paranoia, believers regularly stay up all
night (including week days) to pray against evil spirits, witchcraft and demons
which they believe to be the cause of illnesses, infertility, misfortune, unemployment,
car crashes, and so on. They convince themselves that prayers can stop
imaginary, non-existent entities from harming them. The result is that they are
often sleep deprived and unproductive at work. And because these vigils are
often broadcast through loud speakers it means that their neighbours are
equally sleep deprived.
Aside from its adverse effect on human health and
productivity, sleep deprivation is an important cause of road traffic
accidents. Sadly, most of these prayer warriors never sit still to contemplate
why they did not do well at the job interview or why their marriage is failing
or why they have failed a professional examination. As far as they are
concerned their situations are remotely controlled by external agents.
Imagine that the number of man-hours wasted on night
vigils were directed to scientific research. Rather than a vision to plant
a church on every Nigerian street, imagine if Pastor Adeboye had envisioned the
establishment of thousands of science laboratories across the country. Imagine
where we would be now. Which nation has grown its economy by gathering its
able-bodied men to pray all night? [See also Adeboye on sowing dollar seeds.]
The belief in demons, spirits, and witchcraft in not
unique to Nigerians (Africans). It was prevalent in medieval Europe where tribunals
were held and those found guilty of witchcraft were summarily executed by being
burned alive. This continued until Europe experienced the enlightenment - a
radical change of mindset from one based on superstitions to one driven by
evidence and science. This is what I'm calling for - a revolution in the way we
think as a society.
Before I end, let me briefly address the contentious
issue of how the universe came into existence. The truth is: no one knows.
Believers insist it was created by their own version of God. When I ask how
they know this, they tell me because it said so in the book, written many
centuries ago by dessert dwellers, where animals speak to humans, dead people
are brought back to life, a man rides on a chariot in the sky, another man
walks on water and a virgin got pregnant without sexual intercourse.
I don't see how these fantasies are different from those
in Harry Potter. And when I ask who created this God, they tell me no one did.
Well, if you believe that God, an infinitely complex entity, appeared out of
nothing then why can't the Big Bang have happened without a prime mover? I
despise the arrogance of those who say they know but cannot provide a shred of
evidence. It is far more honourable to admit ignorance than to make up explanations.
From my observation, those who dismiss the theories of
evolution and the Big Bang are often those who have not taken the time to
research the subjects. They ask why humans and animals appear to have stopped
evolving, but they forget that evolution has been happening over millions of
years (Bible literalists believe the world is only 6000 years old) and
therefore imperceptible over the human lifespan. In my view, ignorance is a
matter of choice in this Information Age!
I do not delude or believe myself to be Nigeria's
messiah, but I know that without a change of mindset, our society will not
progress. Superstitions breed distrust and destroy relationships. They
encourage indolence and cause us to engage in unproductive ventures. The
pervasive belief in witchcraft has rendered us a society of paranoid people
and led to the extrajudicial murder of innocent citizens. We have a
choice - we can abandon these medieval beliefs and sanitise our society, or we
can continue to hold on to them and remain backward.
Ijabla is a medical doctor, and he writes from the U.K.
He can be contacted at: ijabijay@me.com
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