What if?
I used to do this thing as a kid where I ask myself some really mind-blowing impossible questions and after almost driving myself insane while trying to answer these questions on my own, I always ended up arriving at the same answer I had before I even started thinking about the questions, that there simply is no answer to somethings.
I remember one night where I just laid on my bed and asked my self that if in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, where was he staying before and where did he come from. I remember later asking my dad the same question and the man didn't even stress himself trying to give me a reasonable answer, he just asked me to leave him alone. He probably was thinking that I was asking a question too big for my age or I just wanted to embarrass him as dad's are suppose to know everything.
Anyway it's been a while I asked myself any of those questions until today when I was reading through the topic suggestions channel in the Hive Learners discord server. Someone had said something about how we feel the world would have been if there was no God, basically if there was nothing like religion.
The truth is unlike every other questions that I've asked myself in the past that always seems impossible to answer, this one looks like the easiest to answer because I feel like a world without religion, where people do things based on good and bad will be the best place to live in because that way, people wouldn't justify a lot of bad things that they do with religion.
Religion is actually one of the big problem we have over here in Africa (especially in Nigeria) because when we should be doing things by ourselves, things that will change our country, we're busy somewhere in a church praying for things to change, things that we know will never change if we don't get up and change it ourselves. Probably why the politicians keep stealing and we just do nothing other than pray they change.
So yeah, I feel that a world without religion will be a good one because people will be more focused on getting things done because they all know that if they don't do it themselves, no one else will unlike today where everyone is always expecting some sort of miracle to happen while they do nothing.
I think every child asks the question of who created God. I know I asked that question. But the truth is, because we are bound by time and space, anything beyond it is incomprehensible and unexplainable. So to think that the creator of the universe, space and time, and all matter and non-matter, should be bound by his own creation would be paradoxical. But that is a controversial topic and one for theologians.
Back to the matter...
I would say religion is as much of a problem in Africa as many other things: politics, social media, and the like. It all just proves the complexity of our human nature that the interaction between complex beings and their complex thoughts can arrive at a collision of creation or destruction.
We humans are designed to believe. We are designed to believe in something that will shape our path of thinking. Everybody believes in one thing or another, be it crypto, religion, constellations (zodiac), food, and an infinite scroll of it all. And that is basically what holds us together, our belief in whatever it is, whether we think about it or not.
Now the problem we have is overly doing something. The moment we begin to take things to the extreme, we begin to lose our essence. We always prefer our opinions over others' simply because they are ours.
And that is the easy part: having opinions and thoughts. There are always more people that talk than people that actually do. People usually want to rely on their hopes and not move from there. They forget that hope is just a spark for a fire, and without fuel to keep the flame alive, it will all dwindle.
It is those who do not live in their dreams that actually wake up and seize the day. And, guess what, they are usually those who are not religious. How sad. The earlier people wake up and act rather than just sitting there and wishing, the sooner they take control of their lives.
Exactly bro.. For some reason I feel you should have made this into a post on your blog in other for other people to see it too.
Just like you said, people overdoing stuff is what is the problem, probably why there's the saying "too much of everything isn't good".
It's good to believe in something, but there are times when despite of what we believe in, we still need to get up and do certain things ourselves if we truly want to make a difference and see some changes.
I never intended to go as deep as I did. But if I do find the drive to write on the topic, I will sure reference my comment here.
I am glad you agree with me.