Friday 20 February 2015

ROLU ADEBOLA: A TALE OF TWO MANUALS



I once had to think about the often held assertion that the Bible is God’s manual for humanity and today, I want to share my thinking on that subject as well. I know there are those who would like to restrict our ability to think out of defined boundaries, but if thinking has become a crime, then I am happy to face trial. 
Now, claiming any holy book is God’s manual for human beings may seem ok to the religious but to me, it casts God in the worst light possible. Today I am going to do a comparison on what I feel is God’s manual for his product and what religion considers it to be. However, before that, a quick illustration: 

Toyota, released a certain model in 1920. It was the strongest car ever made by the car maker, a car that would last for 100 years. However, it did not release the operations manual or blueprint for the car’s maintenance. So for many years, the car could not be fixed and malfunctioned without remedy. In the year 2000, 80 years after the car had been in use, the car maker released the first chapter of the operating and maintenance manual. Over the next 10 years, it continued to release the car’s manuals and instructions in bits and pieces. In the year 2010, 10 years after the release of the first chapter, the second part of the manual was released. This car had become a global success, used in 160 countries and in 2500 cities across the globe. However, when Toyota would release the first chapter of this book, it released it in only one of those cities, from where the then incomplete manual was supposed to spread to the other 2499 cities. Between 2010 and now, the manual has moved slowly from one city to the other and a translation into popular language did not start until 2012. Even then, many cities and countries are still without this manual in their language and the car is nearing its final years of usage!

Personally, I consider the human conscience as God’s manual to guide man. And with this thinking, I lay below the difference between what I consider to be the maker’s manual and that which religion holds to be the manual. This applies to all religions, but I am using the Bible as an example.

GOD’S MANUAL: Came along with the product from day one
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Did not come until about 300,000 years after man existed

GOD’S MANUAL: Was included within the product 
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Is external to the product and often inaccessible 

GOD’S MANUAL: Came complete from day one, did not require compilation and selection
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Was compiled over centuries through varied sources with different viewpoints. However, the manual itself was not compiled into a single manual until 2000 years after the first chapter was written, by a council that had to debate which chapter should stay and which should go!

GOD’S MANUAL: Does not require learning, an ability to read or any skill to access
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Remains inaccessible to those who have not studied or been taught in it

GOD’S MANUAL: Is available in your language from Day one
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Requires translation into your language or teaching through secondary agents and this is yet to happen for majority of the world’s languages

GOD’S MANUAL: Is available in every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every culture 
RELIGION’S MANUAL: First chapter was released in Israel, then later spread to Europe and is still slowly spreading round the world where human beings exist and have existed for millennia without their manual!

GOD’S MANUAL: Can be updated with new knowledge and is flexible 
RELIGION’S MANUAL: Even though it can easily be misinterpreted as it often is, with thousands of varying interpretations, it is actually fixed and CANNOT be edited or updated with new knowledge!

From what I know about manuals, I think only one of the above fits the bill. I feel that if God had a manual for man to live by, he would not manage it the way holy books have been. In my opinion, casting a holy book as the manual God intended human beings to live by makes him look indeed most confused and inept. But to the religious, everything absurd makes sense!

THIS I BELIEVE

I hold that beliefs must be personal as intimate relationships should be. What you see may not be accepted or interpreted as you have by others. 
But as a break from that, I want to share today what I believe, in case there is someone who gives a hoot. Though I doubt there is. So here goes:

*****
I believe in God, a supreme being, nameless, formless, and indefinable in human terms
I believe he cares about me and for me, because he is a personal God
I believe he is infinite goodness, love and perfection, because that’s why he’s the supreme being
I believe that faith must be personal, and that institutions are as much a force for good as they are for evil 
I believe religion is retrogressive, an imperfect vehicle for faith, and that organized religions cannot spread faith, for faith like intimate relationships cannot be spread through organizations
I believe that man’s primary purpose must be to make himself the best he can be, the people around him the best they can be and his habitation, the best it can be
I believe that science is the right vehicle for development, which is a human imperative 
I believe that laws, well enacted and well enforced are the best and most trusted way to make a man better and indeed to make the society better
Finally, I believe that my duty in life is to have fun. For that is what I owe myself and the supreme being who gave me a chance to live. I will not waste that chance on unproven fears and bitterness!






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