The excellent Russell Blackford, over at The Hellfire Club, here at SIN, has recently linked a fascinating account of post-genocide analysis. This quote is representative of the article:
“I renounced Christianity to become atheist when, after the Genocide, I learned about what happened to them,” says Jacques Musoni, 32, a married man living in Nyamirambo. “I couldn’t possibly bear in mind how priests unleashed killers to exterminate their flocks. It was unimaginably incomprehensible. But also, I was wondering where that so-called omnipresent, omnipotent God was.”
With a later heartfelt condemnation:
“He doesn’t exist. I decided to not waste time any longer. And if he exists, I don’t see any difference between him and genocidaires,” he says sternly. “He’s a God who ruthlessly murdered innocent babies, a God who proudly committed terrible massacres in the history of mankind.”
Something which I do find particularly insightful is this quote:
“You do not need religion to know what is wrong and what is right,” says Ndahiro. “In fact, what religious people do practice is not morality. I consider a moral action as that which is free from promises like a heaven or fear of hell.”
Somewhere in my book collection, and I REALLY want to know where, there is an essay which talks about this; how Christians can never fully separate themselves from the emotion blackmail of heaven and hell to be truly and independently moral in their actions. There is always, even if it is highly subconscious, the pull of heaven and hell on one’s consciousness when ‘making a decision’.
Check the article out – it is very good.
