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I try to shy away from discussing faiths of any kind because more often than not, people react as adherents rather than objective discussant and end up blurring and confusing things.
This is the first time I am hearing or being told that Christianity is not a religion by anyone until a fellow discussant posited such. Tuntun ni yen o! (That is new).
There is the contention that those of us who believe in Ifa do not understand the Christian Scripture. I do, even though it is not a necessity for me to believe in the faith of my forefathers.
The fist flaw of assuming that those of us who don’t share the Christian or Islamic faiths don’t understand their Scriptures is that they are also guilty of the same accusation. Will it not be correct if I contend that the Christian and Islamic evangelists echoing this view do not understand Ifá Scripture? This is something they had NEVER studied, something they have no idea about but just parroting a debauchery?
The second flaw in their position is their failure to answer the question as to why would I put my faith in a book like Bible or Quran that some purveyors of the Christian and Islamic faiths have put together over the scriptures of Ifá Oracle that my forefathers put together, though not in a single book?
The information in the books called the Bible, and the Quran are results of the handiwork of those who believe in those faiths and it doesn’t make them superior to what Ifá originators and believers had put together.
With all the mistakes, contradictions and confusions in the Bible and Quran, it is only FAITH that make people take them hook, line and sinker. In matters of religion, “BELIEVING IS SEEING” and not “SEEING IS BELIEVING”. Otherwise, the Christian Bible or the Islamic Quran would not be able to stand the rigours of serious religious, intellectual and moral scrutiny.
It is FAITH that has helped the adherents of Christianity and Islam to stick to their beliefs despite all the contradictions in their Scriptures. It is the same FAITH that makes us believe in the efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness of Ifá Oracle over and above the Christian Bible and the Islamic Quran.
The glee with which ignorant Christian and Islamic evangelists attack my Yoruba Culture and religions has HYPOCRISY painted all over it. The cultural milieu from whence their Christian and Islamic faiths sprouted had a lot of moral debasement. It has to be so, because they are milieus populated by imperfect human beings. Why the hypocritical purveyors of Christianity and Islam would not be willing to concede to the Yoruba or any other African Traditional society that luxury only underscores and underlines their debauchery.
Whatever anyone quotes from the Bible or the Quran has no relevance over and above what is in Ifá Scriptures or any other Scriptures of any other faith for that matter be it Hindu or Bhuda.
In my opinion, Christian Gospels is one genre of faith. Ifá Oracle is a genre in its own class.Just as there are several others. The claim of SUPERIORITY by Christianity or Islam over others has no basis except probably in the volume of its adherents which in itself is a product of Centuries of killing, maiming and destruction in Crusades and JIHADS respectively.
No religion or faith is superior to another. Every faith or religion is an expression of spiritual experience sprouted from cultural farms.
This is why you will NEVER find a reference to Yoruba, Igbo, Asante, Akan, Tuareg, Mumuye or Kataf in the Bible. It is also the same reason you will not find reference to the Jews, the Saxons or the Anglos in Ifa Scriptures.
But because faith is a universal experience, it is possible for Yoruba, Kataf or Asante people to relate to the Christian Bible or Islamic Quran just as it has been possible for Germans, British, Italians, Americans, Brazilians, Argentines, Peruvians, and several others to relate without any inhibition to Ifá Scriptures and faith.
I really don’t want to go into negatives of Christianity or Islam as faiths and why I am more in tune with Ifá. It is why I am advising that each should stick to his own faith without denigrating another man’s faith and belief.
The usual practice of Christians and Muslims attacking my Yoruba Culture and religions has economic and political undertones. It has to stop otherwise some of us will also be forced to defend our faith and continue to expose the lies embedded in the Christian and Islamic faiths in the deceit of human race.
But we want harmony amongst all, the best thing is to live and let live. Practice your Christianity and Islam and let me follow my Ifá Oracle. ORUN NIKAN LO MO ENITÍ YIO LA, so posited by my forefathers. And they are ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
“In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.”
– John F. Kennedy, in his Inaugural Address January 20, 1961
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