A US-based Ghanaian Scientist, Jefferson Danquah, says praying for peaceful elections in December this year is an unnecessary waste of precious time.
He believes there is no God and Ghanaians should, instead of wasting their time on prayers, use their cognitive abilities and do the right things that will prevent any violence.
Jefferson, said Ghanaians’ unalloyed belief in religion and superstition was the bane of the underdevelopment in Ghana.
He said instead of applying practical solutions to their problems, Ghanaians congregated in churches, suspended all critical thinking and prayed to a non-existent God.
“I don’t think prayer works. If you went 10 years without saying a word of prayer, I guarantee your life would be the same,” he stated.
Civil strife and political violence, he maintained, come about when critical institutions such as the army and the police take positions in the political discourse.
So to prevent violence during or after the elections or at any time, efforts must be made to counsel and educate the armed forces and the police to recognize the important duty they have regarding the security of the nation – a burden they cannot discharge creditably if they take sides.
Insisting that Ghanaians were virtually unreasonably religious, Jefferson said the situation where segments of the society were regarded as witches and quarantined at so-called witches camps was a disgrace to the nation. For him, it was not only sad but curious that all the people accused of witchcraft were women.
The citizenry must be educated to use their imaginative abilities, he said, adding that was the only way to lift the people out of the squalor and misery they live in currently.
Jefferson said poverty cannot be eradicated through prayer.
Another Ghanaian based in the US, Rev. Dr. Samuel Kissiedu vehemently disagreed with Jefferson on the existence of God.
He suggested that Jefferson had been badly influenced and did not know what he was talking about.
Rev. Kissiedu however agreed that too much superstition was negatively affecting the country’s growth and development.
Source: Myjoyonline.com
