Shango Is Superior To Yahweh

Ibrahim ka-Almasih

The article “Shango is Superior to Yahweh” published in Daily Sun of 3–2–05 and 10–2–05 is arguably the worst unprovoked, blasphemous assault on Christianity in recent times in this country. The author, Mr.

Naiwu Osahon, attacked Christianity with envy, rage, passion and phobia.

Osahon might have impressed some readers by the perceived painstaking biblical details in his provocative piece. But the fact is that he was not the first ‘researcher’ to discover and make such blasphemous ‘observations’. As a matter of fact, all the ‘points’ he made are found all over the Internet and many books of earlier anti-Christ. The only difference between Osahon and his inspirators is that he was not as creatively rude and abusive as most of them. All the same, Osahon’s article is dangerously inciting by any standard.

He, among other things, said, “…the Christians themselves do not have much respect for their Jewish God, Yahweh. They described him as Satan…. The Bible says the Christian God created evil…., deceived…, rewarded liars….. That is the perfect God of the Holy Bible. What criminal, what villain, in all history had a record to match? He is an evil intermediary, obviously”. Osahon earlier said, “Yahweh is the summit of the Jewish evil genius and their instruments of world domination” But throughout Osahon merely misinterpreted the Holy Bible to support his mischievous claims, as we will see later. In fact when I first stumbled on Osahon’s anti-Christian and showy intellectualism in a column of The Sun newspaper, I instantly remembered earlier populists blasphemers of Christianity who were punished by God Almighty Himself! It should be pointed out that while some of these critics of Christianity were prompted by envy and phobia occasioned by the axiomatic overwhelmingness of the faith, others were sheer populists, who exploited the sensitiveness of religion by blaspheming in order to attract attention. Those foolhardy enough attacked just any religion that crossed their minds and so, on many occasions, such daring populists were either killed or terribly dealt with by the provoked faithful of non-Christian faiths, thereby served as deterrent to potential blasphemers of such faiths. Thus, haven seen what had befallen their predecessors; latter adventurous blasphemers (like Osahon) gradually concentrated their focus largely on the peaceful Christian faith.

Therefore, it is not now that the callous but coward populists began to capitalize on the peaceful nature of Christianity to make ‘fame’ by singling it out for attack with reckless abundant, like Osahon did albeit by possibly relaying on the works of earlier blasphemers.

Osahon should know that Christianity is “an anvil on which many hammers have been broken”. His hammer can’t be an exception. History has shown that no one has ever bastardized the Holy Bible or the person of Christ and get away with it except some very few that were lucky to repent in time. So the Christians’ non-violent nature is not to be taken for granted for God, the author of Christianity is keenly watching! Before I respond to Osahon’s assault on the Holy Bible, let me debunk his comparative analysis of the potency of Yahweh and Shango. Osahon implied that the "efficacy” of magic and occultism is a proof of Shango’s superiority over Yahweh. But that is too simplistic and spurious. Reader might have at one time witnessed a public display by a visibly poverty-stricken, dirty and smelly magician who turned some leaves into plenty N500 notes to convince spectators that he was capable of making any of them millionaire at as little as, say, N200 fees. Or turned a piece of stone into a big chicken to show that he had the powers to transform a valueless to a valuable at a very small fees. The question is: since the miserable magician had powers to turn mere leaves into N500 notes etc, why did he remain poor? And why did he prefer normal money (N200) to magical money (N500)? Therefore, there must be something unreal and dubious about magic or Shango.

Osahon himself brought the alleged potency of witchcraft to question when, elsewhere, he said the claims of having powers of healing by the witchcraft-powered Pentecostal pastors were, after all, a hoax “ stage-managed with paid people posing to have been cured of some ailments…” Osahon should note also that whereas Yahweh has wonderfully become a universal household name, Shango is known only within the few villages where people are in bondage of regimenting ignorance, and among a handful of educated pagans, a group of people who shy away from intellectually congested Christian world and preferred the less intellectually competitive pagan one, where they could easily be champions.

Now the question is: where was the ‘powerful’ Shango when Yahweh was spreading His tentacles until He engulfed virtually every where in the world including the very place where Shango deity was fabricated by the ancient primitive pagans? If not weakness why did Shango not prevent Christianity, the religion of Yahweh, from encroaching even into his Head Quarters? That Christians (Yahwehians) excel scientifically, technologically and economically while pagans (Shangoists) lag far behind is indicative that Yahweh is, in the whole, much more beneficent and empowering than Shango and, impliedly, Yahweh is far greater than Shango. Don’t be too little a mind to be carried away by the temporary and unprogressive powers of Shango magic.

Osahon proudly stated that all the pagan deities of this world originated from Africa well, Coleman similarly said, “… of all people in non European world the Africans was believed to be the most heathen”. But can’t Osahon than see the damage done to the poorest continent, by her types of paganisms, which are the worst in the world? Of all the paganisms of this world those of Africa, the home continent of Shango, are believed to be the most counter productive and irrational. Thus Coleman said, “in 1873 a returned missionary said: the china man meets you with the stolid morality of Confucianism; the Hindu with astute logic for his Pantheism……..but when I carry my touch into the caves of Africa, I meet only filthy birds of darkness”. You can see what Shango turned Africa into – a den of despondency, desolation and misery, before Yahwehians (Christians) rescued it.

If the pre-Christianity Africa with it western contemporaries are shown to Osahon, I am sure he will even say the white missionary above did not adequately expose the ugliness and inferiority of paganism (Shangoism).

Osahon advocates Shangoism but even he too distastes the smelly and dirty aspects of the rituals. But he can’t eat his cake and have it. Shangoism and putrid clumsiness and rottenness (and, in fact, violence-as in the case of cultism) are inseparable. Any call to Shangoism, when we have already seen the light of Christ, is not only tantamount to drawing us back to the inglorious days of drinking offensive smelling concoctions (which are the secret behind Shango’s perceived powers) but also a grave spiritual crime. The ordour and bad taste of Shango’s concoctions confuses the psychology and the state of the system of the drinker to give him deceptive impression of the reality of what he desires such as cure from sickness etc.

Of course, in some cases, the concoctions and incantations invoke the limitedly powerful lucifer for some desired effects that, however, only in some very few cases, last long. However, as Osahon himself admitted, paganism does not give any thing free of charge. Some how there must be some prices or what Osahon preferred to call “conditions to fulfill”. Remember, God has given Lucifer, the estranged leader of His angels, remnant of powers to enable him govern the unrepentant children that He (God) temporarily or permanently banished from His Kingdom. That is why paganism is not confined to Africa. It exists in virtually every primitive community of the world.

Osahon tried to lend credence to paganism by alleging that, “ The Holy Communion with wine and bread representing the blood and flesh of Jesus respectively, is criminal (witchcraft) cannibalism but church faithful prefer to deceive themselves. The day light human sacrifice of Luciano (Catholics prefer to call it the ‘miracle’ of fresh human flesh and blood) proves the true nature of the communion host the Eucharist”. Obviously Osahon is pathetically helpless in his desperate move to associate the enviably great Christian faith with his primitive pagan belief otherwise what is cannibalistic about Holy Communion talkless of criminality? As for the alleged witchcraft room at the Golden Gate of St Paul’s Basilica at the Vatican containing skeletons of special ancestors etc that it (the room) is entered once in 50 years by the Pope, I wonder how Osahon got to know that especially as he described the room authoritatively, the way only a Pope who once entered can do. Osahon is obviously an unintelligent but desperate liar! But since I am an adherent to Semitic Christianity, I leave this aspect for Catholics to respond in details. Having failed to get a suitable biblical verse to misrepresent as a proven case of witchcraft in Christianity desperate Osahon resorted to hearsay and blatant lies.

As for Osahon’s allegation that some Christian priests patronize pagan sources of magical powers in order to make their churches miraculous centers of attraction, he needs to be informed that he is just “disclosing” to the world what the Holy Bible had disclosed to the world hundreds of years ago (Matt. 7: 15 – 23). So Osahon is telling the world, especially Christians, nothing new. The Holy Bible fore warned us that such money mongering pagans would parade themselves as Christian Pastors but employ magical powers, from the devil, their father, and claim that it is the power of the biblical Holy Spirit, but that on the last day God would tell such people, “get away!, I don’t know you”.

That is why the Holy Bible has made a clear demarcation between Christianity and magic. In fact, biblically, whoever patronizes magician or practices magic is going to the hell fire except he repents (2 Cor. 6: 14 – 18, Gal. 5:19-21). So how can Osahon associate Christianity with magic or paganism? Note that while the biblical miracle is tangible and real, magic or pagan power is a temporary deceit and the two powers are parallel.

In fact the difference between Yahweh and shango is so fundamental. While Yahweh is the creator of man (in fact, the whole universe), Shango was, on the other hand, merely created by man. As Mr Osahon himself admitted, “Yahweh(?) Shango, Amadioha, Egbesu, Olokun, Ogun are all man made deities or tribal gods…. Because man is ignorant about how to tap into the spiritual self, he employs intermediaries. He invests the intermediaries with power by humbling himself through prayers and worship….” The only mistakes Osahon made here are two: (a) Yahweh was never a tribal deity let alone being created by man as is the case with Shango etc; (b) the inventor is always greater than the invention so it is stupid for the inventor to ‘humble himself through prayers and worship’ before the invention, more so when the inventor was the one who supposedly “invests” the invention with the needed powers. Thus paganism is, to say the least, a foolishly illogical idea.

Osahon is obviously too incompetent to explain how Christians and Muslims came about their religions. Hear him “the Jews after their ‘famous’ exodus from Egypt created ten intermediary Gods or deities for their tribal protection and ascendance. The Gods are: Yahweh, Hokhmah, Binah….There is this lie that alien religion worship only one God. This is not true. What Christian and Islamic religions did was choose Yahweh from the ten Jewish intermediaries and substitute the other nine with Jesus, Moh’d, Saints, Anubis (Annabis), Angels etc”.

Nothing can be more ignorant and further from truth. What Osakon called 10 gods are mere names of the same one God, Yahweh. In Christianity and Islam saints and angels are quite different from deities and from one another and they are much more than 10. Again, at no time have Muslims directly or indirectly considered their prophet (Muh’d) a deity or an object of worship for that matter.

In his desperate efforts to further lure readers into trivializing Yahweh, Osahon cleverly employed an impressive, but actually misleading comparism thus, “spirituality is like the internet. To be able to enter it, we need the services of facilitators especially if we are spiritually neophytes. To be able to enter Internet, for instance, we employ engines such as yahoo, Hotmail, Google, etc. Yahweh, the Christian and Islamic God; or zeroona, Akeme, Brahma, Shango etc serve like yahoo, Hotmail and Google engines for entering the spiritual internet…” What a simplistic analogy! Even a simpleton knows that both the internet and yahoo or Hotmail or google were created by human beings, who, as the creators, determine the nature, and know the workings of both internet and yahoo both of which function based on predetermined programmes. On the other hands, man was not the creator of spiritual Internet and Yahweh and he does not predetermine their natures and he does not, therefore, know the workings of the spirituality or spiritual Internet. Of course, he is the creator of Shango and Egbesu etc but even here too he can’t articulate the pattern and process of the “workings” of Shango because the entire affair is a crudity shrouded in mystery called superstition, which had overwhelmed Africa and therefore made it the most scientifically and technologically backward and, therefore poorest continent on planet Earth especially before the advent of Christianity. So Yahweh and yahoo are, to say the least, never comparable! Osahon, who proudly said, “African ancestors created all the initial intermediary gods and deities known to man” should wonder why the “yahoo equivalents” called shango, Egbesu, Olokun, Amadioha Ogun etc failed to help African “browse” wonderfully and beneficially from the “spiritual internet” in which case the Christian missionaries who came to civilize etc would have found Africa to be already most civilized, advanced developed and, therefore, “unencroachable” continent rather than the other way round as it was.

Mischievous misrepresentation of biblical passages is part of Osahon’s stock in trade. For instance, he alleged that the Holy Bible says God created evil, citing Lam. 3:37, Jer 26:3, Ezek 20:25 – 26 etc. But what actually are these verses saying? Lam 3:37.39 “who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? 38 Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come? 39 Why should any living man complain when punished for his sins?” Jer. 26:3, “perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done” Ezek. 20: 24 –26, “because they had not obeyed my laws but had rejected my decrees and desecrated my Sabbath, and their eyes lusted after their fathers idols. 25 I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by: 26 I let them become defiled through their gifts”. You could clearly see that Osahon had quoted the Holy Bible out of context. Osahon alleged that the Holy Bible said God deceived, citing Jer 4:10, 15:18, 20:7 …..”. But Jer 4:10, Osahon should have known, is an allegorical and metaphorical expression of lamentation by prophet Jeremiah as Israel was being punished for its sins while 15:18 is the continuation of the lamentation, with the prophet asking God wonderingly. And 20:7 is Prophet Jeremiah’s metaphorical expression of complain. The word, “deceive” here effectively means, “persuade” (see the foot notes of copies of the Bible). This shows that the word “deceive” in the above verses is not literally, within the context. Being translated from the oldest book on Earth, the original contextual meanings of “deceive” was possibly slightly different from the modern senses of the word.

He alleged that the Holy Bible says God lied, citing Gen 2:77, 2 Sam 7:13. But Gen 2:17 says, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” And truly Adam (eventually) died instead of living forever in the Garden of Eden as originally intended for him (Gen 3:21-24; 1Cor 15:21-22; Rom 5:12). Note also that the meaning of death in Christianity is contextual (Rom 6:2,8, 8:6-7; 1Cor 15:31; 2Tim 2:11; Col 2:20). And says 2 Sam 7:13, “He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever”. There is clearly no any lie here but Osahon’s ignorance. That Bible says God reward liars, citing Ex. 1: 15 – 20. But in the Ex 1:15 – 20, the midwives deceived a criminal king to avoid his sinful assignment of murdering so many innocent baby boys. Thus God, being intelligent, rewarded their modest effort of substituting a much lesser crime for a much greater crime. Is it not far better to lie to a wicked king than to have to kill a human being at his instance? Christianity is a religion of reason and intelligence. In fact, we can go on and on.

As for the alleged contradictions, fallacies, inconsistencies and wrong prophecies etc in the Holy Bible especially under Osahon’s other blasphemous article titled, “The Real Anti-Christ” published in earlier editions of Daily Sun, which (the criticism) actually originated from Osahon’s predecessors, who were obviously ignorant of the nature of the Holy Bible, even though one Isaac Ben-Seth has adequately responded (The Sun 10-02-05), I implore Mr. Osahon to get these facts. That the Holy Bible is the oldest surviving book on Earth and it comprises: 1. God/Jesus’ statements (at times printed in red), 2. Prophets/Apostles’ traditions and 3. Reports of events of the biblical times.

It is a pity that critics quote the “reports” and the “traditions” parts of the Holy Bible to try to substantiate their claims that the Holy Bible is contradictory etc and therefore “it is not God’s statements” instead of quoting the biblical God’s statements. Still, such criticisms are normally simplistic and unscholarly. Osahon, Note This Carefully.

The seeming or alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the Holy Bible are NATURAL. Such parts of the Bible came from VARIOUS INDIVIDUALS and under VARIOUS CONDITIONS. Scientifically, such accounts are subject to INDIVIDUALITY and CONDITIONALITY except when doctored. Thus this existence of individualisms and variety of conditions is a proof that the individual biblical accounts have not been doctored up to achieve (dubious) harmony and are, therefore, not fictions (in which case they would have been identically written by all the collaborators) but true and historical events reported independently by various individuals. Example of CONDITIONALITY: Mark (10:46-52) says that Jesus healed while LIVING Jericho. But Luke (18:35-43) says while ENTERING.

This, as a Western Reverend writer admitted, had been thought to be, as apparently is, a sharp contradiction until the excavation of Earnest Sellan of the German Oriental Society (citing ‘Archeology and Bible History’ page 295), when it was discovered that the Jericho of Jesus’ time was actually a double city—Jewish (old) Jericho and Roman (modern) Jericho, such that LIVING one could as well mean ENTERING the other.

Thus both Luke and Mark are perfectly right. Their various versions were caused by the CONDITION of the then Jericho namely; its double-city nature.

Example of INDIVIDUALITY: Because Mark and Luke (as in the case above) did not collaborate but rather independently wrote, INDIVIDUALITY became obvious in their judgments. Thus while one of them conservatively regarded the original (Jewish) Jericho as the (actual) Jericho, the other modernly regarded the administrative (Roman) Jericho as (currently) the Jericho.

Other Examples: Mark (1:6) says, “John’s food was ONLY locust and honey”, while Matthew (11:18) says, “John came NEITHER eating nor drinking”.

Thus, while Mark considered the ‘exact aspect’ of John’s feeding, Matthew considered the ‘comparative aspect’.

According to John (19:17) Jesus bore his cross up to the Golgotha. But according to Luke (23:26), one Simon was later on forced to carry the cross and follow Jesus; seemingly a sharp contradiction, especially by Osahon’s standard.

But the fact is that Jerusalem was a large and walled city and Golgotha was a place just outside Jerusalem.

Normally, Jesus must have bore his cross from the Pilate’s Court to as far as outside the Jerusalem wall and within the premises of Golgotha before the Simon, who was, however, not even an accused, was nevertheless forced to take over from the too fatigued Jesus to the crucifixion spot.

Thus while John ignored the ‘negligible’ contribution of Simon, Luke recognized it, apparently for historical record.

In fact, naturally, INDIVIDUALITY and CONDITIONALITY variously manifest whenever a historical event is independently reported by different individuals and or when there is a difference of conditions. And these are what the unscholarly critics of the oldest surviving book on Earth, the Holy Bible, wrongly refer to as incriminating contradictions etc in the holy book.

Ka-Almasih is a Kaduna-based Journalist