Should religion be an exception?
This question that I'm about to ask is probably one that could be answered easily with common sense, but coming from a country like mine where religion is sacred and you speaking ill of anything religion related can be seen as you willingly opening the gate of hell for yourself, I have to ask it.
You see, something happened yesterday, something that happens a lot around here that many of us feel is annoying and yet we say nothing about it, not because we're scared but because we're scared... Let me explain.
Every Saturday morning is a day for my hostel clean up, we all wake up as early as 6am in the morning to dispose our waste and clean the entire hostel, and just like every other Saturday, the same thing had happened this Saturday, only that we had someone else with us, a preacher.
This lady had found a spot right next to our hostel and placed her really loud speaker there while playing some native Christian songs that were nothing but annoying. She played those songs for about twenty to thirty minutes before finally turning it off, connecting her microphone and preach for about an hour.
Of course none of us at the hostel have anything against someone choosing to preach the gospel, but it was the timing that got us angry. Everyone who came downstairs were complaining about the noise she was making and yet no one had the guts to approach her and either ask her to leave or reduce her speaker volume, which brings me to us being scared but not exactly scared.
Without being told, I know the only reason no one had approached her wasn't because we were scared of the lady herself, but because we were scared of the wrath of God coming on us for preventing his servant from preaching the gospel. Like I've said on different occasions here, Nigeria is a very superstitious country and we believe a lot in these kind of things, and that was why no one had said a word to the lady, even though we were all pissed off and grumbling to ourselves.
Which brings me to my question.. As a religious person and probably as someone with common sense, do you think it's wrong for us to ask them to leave when they decide to preach that early in the morning and disturb people in their sleep, or do you think that just for the fact that it has to do with something religious, that it should be overlooked?
When it comes to noise pollution, should religion be an exception?
It's the look you might get from other Christians after telling her to turn down the volume. The ‘Devils incarnate’ look.
What is wrong still stands out as wrong, so many things are left to slide here in Nigeria.
Yeah that's true.. A lot of people would see me as a bad person for that but what's wrong is wrong.
True
It is a difficult question because for the people who want to hear it the word pollution might not apply. And the same could be said about loud music, loud sports etc. If there is legal requirement for certain decibels and below then of course it is fine to enforce that. Other than that there is also the freedom to allow people to practice as they want.
Having said all of the above from a legal and general perspective, if the entire community of not just your Hostel but the surrounding houses etc. are all accepting that for you the timing is an issue, then probably it is ok to go and tell her to either reduce the sound or generally shut off the speaker and speak normally.
Whoever wants to come to listen will do so.
At the end of the day I say all this from the comfort of my home miles away. The base reality is that religion has an illogical hold on people (and here I speak of organized religion and not of faith) and it is very difficult to be discuss with them rationally.
You have highlighted your troubles and the conundrum very elegantly @prayzz You write very cleanly and without any ambiguity. Need to learn that from you.
I understand all what you've said but surprisingly I didn't expect it to be this complicated because to me, it all boils down to what's right and wrong and standing in the middle of the street at 6am in the morning to talk directly into a mic connected to a loud speaker is simply wrong.
It shouldn't matter what you're doing.
And thanks for reading and commenting and also for the compliment.. I appreciate it all.
I have little knowledge about other religions and with the little knowledge I can say it confidently that no religion allows anyone to do such kind of act which disturbs others. So I think you guys should complain about the act. I don't think the act is the part of religion.
I am sorry if my words hurt you and it was not my intention.
Lol.. I'm not hurt and I actually agree with you. I'm a Christian and have nothing against Christianity but someone waking me up as early as 6am just to preach would get me pissed off too.
Every human being follows his own religion and we like our religion very much and like it very much and by following all these things we get a lot of peace.
Its not only religious preachers that constitute noise pollution. The problem is that most times people are not interested in religious talks and as such are averse to it. If a neighbour was playing music from your favourite playlist at about the same time of day, chances are that you won't complain. You may even find yourself singing along or vibing to it.
In my hostel, it causes a lot of drama but on a close look I realised that noise is not the problem but the type of noise. The religious guys don't complain when it's religious noise whereas the social guys don't complain even on nights when we hold parties late into the night.
I think tolerance is the key, but if the noise begins to get out of hand, it's also advisable to caution the person gently and with respect to avoid being misunderstood.
Well although you might be right, I actually disagree with you on the noise not being something I'm interested in because I used to have a neighbour who plays really good songs as early as 5:30am in the morning and we had issues with him because interested or not, anything that disturbs my sleep is an enemy to me.