The Will to Disbelieve

The Will to Disbelieve

Leo Igwe

Every individual has the right to believe or not to believe. And every believer in one thing is an unbeliever in another. Both belief and unbelief are two sides of the same coin.
Incidentally the term unbeliever has been used and misused to mean one who doesn’t belief in a god.
Hence in the Nigerian culture there is too much emphasis on belief and make belief especially the belief in God.
I was excited to read the interview published in the Saturday Punch(Nigerian) of March 10 2007
In this piece, Nike Ransome Kuti, the daughter of the late pro-democracy and human rights activist, Dr Beko Ransome Kuti boldly and unequivocally stated why she did not believe in God. She declared, “ I am not a religious person… I see no evidence of the existence of God.”
To some people, this ‘confession’ would not come as a surprise. After all Nike’s father-Beko Ransome Kuti was an atheist. And the Kuti family is known for entertaining opposing and rebellious views and sentiments. But this is not the issue. The fact is that Nike by this declaration has become the first Nigerian woman to go open and public with her non-religious and non-theistic views and identity.
Surely she is not the only non-religious woman in Nigeria. There are many- millions- of them out-there who are living and languishing in the closets of religious superstition, unreason and blind faith. But Ms Ransome Kuti is the first to openly declare her non-belief in God.
The significance of this declaration comes into perspective when one considers the fact that Nigeria is a deeply religious society. Most –if not all-Nigerians are born into one religion or the other. But not all of us end up upholding the faith of our fathers and families. Some of us grow up to abandon and renounce the family religion and to become non religious-atheists, agnostics and freethinkers. Like Nike, there are many Nigerians who do not see any evidence for the existence of God. There are Nigerians who are unchurched, unmosqued and unshrined. There are Nigerians who are God free and religion free. Yes, there are Nigerians who do not take religion or belief in God seriously. Unfortunately most of them are too afraid to express or admit this openly and publicly.

On several occasions I have met Nigerians-young and old- that told me that they didn’t believe in God, but lacked the courage to say so. So they ‘cowardly’ parade themselves as religious believers, as theists and supernaturalists. What a shame!
But should one really blame them? For centuries, religions have employed several means and weapons to suppress and discourage doubt, dissent and disbelief. These machinations have banished nonreligious and non-theistic people to the closets. They have driven atheists underground, robbing humanity of much of the liberating and enlightening possibilities of freethinkers.
First of all religions demonize nonbelievers. They portray those who do not believe in God as evil. They call them sinners (as if believers do not sin) or agents of the Devil.
The Bible instructs Christians not to ‘yoke’ equally with unbelievers. The Koran enjoins muslims ‘to make war on infidels and unbelievers who dwell around you’
The so-called holy books ascribe very terrible qualities to infidels. They are said to be wicked, destructive and immoral. Non-believers are said to embody all the frightening and despicable attributes of Satan. Even when religious believers manifest –sometimes - similar or worse traits. Of course non-believers are perceived as already convicted candidates for Hell fire.
Lets not bother ourselves here whether Hell is real or not. Ordinarily no human being would want to go to Hell.
Again religions identify unbelief with stupidity and foolery. Unbelievers are portrayed as people ‘without sense and knowledge’. Psalm 14 verse 1 says, “The fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God’” So according to the Bible anyone who does not believe in God is a fool. And think about it, most people would not want to be regarded as fools just for not upholding a make believe. One thing the Bible did not tell us- is that this verse was actually meant to fool people into not thinking and not reasoning.
Lastly, religions criminalize unbelief. They make it an offence to criticize, renounce and ridicule religion or belief in God. The ‘crime of unbelief’ has been variously identified as heresy, anathema, apostasy, sacrilege and blasphemy. All these are mere words crafted to justify and sanctify the oppression and liquidation of free thinkers. And in the past centuries, those convicted of the ‘crime of unbelief’ have been excommunicated, incarcerated, executed, burnt at stake, beheaded or stoned to death.
Under Islam, fatwa-death sentence- is passed on anyone who says or does something, which muslims deem offensive or disrespectful of their religion like the cartooning of their prophet-Muhammad
Some years ago fatwa was passed on Salman Rushdie for writing the Satanic Verses.
So, religions have made unbelief dangerous, deadly and unattractive. Hence many people dare not criticize religion openly and publicly. Most non-religious people fear to express their doubts and unbelief. Because there is a great price- a supreme price- to pay for doing so. That is why it is always a thing of joy whenever someone- courageously- steps forward to say ‘I don’t believe’, ‘I don’t see any evidence for the existence of God or afterlife’ ‘I am non religious’ And we must not forget that this act of courage has always brought humanity a lot of benefits. Today, we owe most of the ideas that have changed the world to freethinkers who defied religious dogma, orthodoxy and persecution.
The ideas include haliocentricism, the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote and to choose contraception and abortion, the use of anesthesia, evolution, decriminalization of homosexuality etc.
But religions continue to maintain their dominance and over aching influence in most parts of the world through force, violence, hypocrisy, intimidation, oppression and victimization of unbelievers, not necessarily through genuine knowledge, persuasion, the force of logic, commitment and conviction. Over the centuries religious faiths have sustained the tyranny and stranglehold on people’s minds by demonizing, immoralizing and criminalizing unbelief, free thought and dissent.

Hence many people today identify themselves as religious believers when indeed they are not. Some people pay lip service to religion because they don’t want to fit into the religion-crafted negative, demeaning, condemned and damned in-this-world-and-the-next categories of unbelievers.
Simply put, many people profess religion because they don’t want to die.
And any day religions abandon their dirty, bloody, terrorizing and intimidating tricks and tactics, as is now the case in much of Europe- the dynamics and demography of religious belief and unbelief in the world will radically change. Because no one would be forced to identify himself as a religious believer when indeed he is not. No one will be forced to believe in a God when she sees no evidence for its existence. Instead every individual will be free to believe or not to belief, to worship or not to worship any god or spirit. Every person will be free to doubt, agree or disagree with any religious dogma or doctrine.
There will be no true religious liberty until the rights of individuals to hold religious and non-religious views, theistic and non-theistic beliefs are guaranteed. Freedom of religion is incomplete without freedom from religion or freedom to hold views that are critical of religion. And freedom of thought includes freedom to hold theistic and non-theistic thoughts. In fact all religions started as heresies. And their founders were the blasphemers and apostates of the religions of their own days.

So, those who do not believe in God or who do not profess any religion do not do so because they hate God or religion per se. Or, because they just want to offend the sensibilities of religious believers. But, because they are honest. Unbelievers don’t want to deceive themselves. They don’t want to claim to have a father in Heaven when they know there is nobody like that. They don’t want to claim to have a savior when they know it is all hocus-pocus. Unbelievers do not want to hinge their lives on transcendental temptation, illusion and superstition.

So non-religious people entertain doubts and disbelief in fulfillment of their conscience.

It is a mark of intellectual honesty for one to say that one does not see any evidence for a thing when actually one does not see any.
And it is sheer self-deceit, foolery and fraud for one to claim to be communicating with somebody when in actual fact one is communicating with nobody.
So people become nonreligious in their quest for truth, knowledge and understanding.
People become non theistic, not out of stupidity or foolery, but by exercising the virtues of cognition, courage and candor, and by mustering and marshalling their will to disbelieve.

Leo Igwe is the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement

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