Graffiti of an atheist, By Kelechi C. Ogbamgba

“You don’t understand what graffiti is, if you never run away from the cops.” – Anonymous 

 

“There are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely, completely – or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world, in its hypocrisy demands.” – Oscar Wilde

 

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.” – Oscar Wilde

 

I am an atheist and I owe no one any apologies about my belief. I shudder when people, particularly these noisy christians, talk to me condescendingly, trying to drag me into the conundrum of their faith which they neither understand nor practice. They make it sound as if they’re special breeds just because of the faith they profess which they merely wear like a lapel pin. When it suits them, they don it gleefully. Often times, they repudiate it with a childish glee. Beyond mere ceremonies and sanctimonious display of outward piety, there’s actually nothing endearing about them that convinces about what they lampoon me for – ungodliness and unbelief.

 

They sneer at me with condescending pity just because I make bold to affirm that there is no god. Yes, I have neither god to fear nor any deity to cringe to. I have no hope of eternity nor the desire to live in any eldoradoic fantasy kingdom.

 

Anyway, does it really bother me, when I’m not alone in this lonely path? The lifestyle of a myriad of these pompous self-righteous professing christians are a good advertisement for my atheistic inclination though they’ll contest this very vociferously albeit, only merely glibly. But hey, what’s religion for them other than the mercantilist source of a steady meal ticket and the steamy source of illicit comfort! Once that feeding bottle and the ready source of ease are withdrawn from their sticky mouths, pronto, they repudiate the God they claim to know and serve! How very flippant these are!

 

Oh yes, I dream no dream about a blissful future beyond the time nor crave for their ethereal golden streets somewhere beyond the skies. Mine is to live life to the fullest and after that, my decayed carcase will manure the soil for them to plant, reap, eat and die.

 

But what about these christians? Aren’t they mere hypocrites, professing a God they know not nor desire to live for. They renounce Him in word and in deed, rejecting the tenets of his manual of life, which, I hear, they call the Bible.

 

I see their worn Bibles in the dashboard of their ornamented cars, and on their embellished shelves; also often tucked away under their soft pillows like a juju or talisman; pillows that bear no lachrymal marks of sorrow for the sin-infested world. Their lives manifest an abysmal contrast of the tenets of their faith enshrined in the same manual. Pity! They want to have the best of both worlds – enjoy the fruits of wantonness and the crumbs of evil and, at the same time, inherit the eternal bliss they said is meant for the righteous! Such barefaced duplicity! No wonder, they go sanctimoniously to their ornamented cathedrals on Sunday and, the very next day, crept unashamedly into the cranky-shrines of hand-crafted gods, flowing smoothly with the stream of a duplicitous world. Indeed, Edmund Burke couldn’t have captured it any better when he noted that “hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.”

 

We atheists are sincerer and even more honest than these pretentious professors of faith. We aren’t this duplicitous. What we say, we believe. What we believe, we proclaim in the valley and in the mountains. Knowing no god or fearing no devil, we are guided merely by our consciences, which remain intact even amidst the pang of condemnatory darts that often prick our hearts. What about these christians? With hearts obviously hardened by a pharisaic my-neighbour’s-vile but all’s-well-with-me disposition, and lacking in conviction, they easily betray their God at the least provocation. Many lack the courage to stand by their faith, least of all showing any willingness to pay the ultimate price in its defense or sustainability. The age-long and time-tested willingness for martyrdom that we atheists thought they had, has long been blurred off their unconscionable consciences.

 

The quest for the fineries of the primal realm of pleasure have ensnared them, and the gilded toys they crave for have mortally enslaved them. Their worship, often merely formalistic, is sepulchral than solemn, mournfully eerie than anything endearing – rancourous and lacking in a tranquil quietude. Hardly would they finish from that momentary gesture of contrived piety than they would relapse again into the depths of their quartet knees, two apiece to their despised divine Deity and two apiece to deified depraved demons! Religion, for them, provides a mere temporal elixir that doesn’t go beyond the scrape layer of verbal pronouncement. No wonder, the cranky rickety vehicle of their faith is so weak to carry them beyond the weekly sanctimonious assemblage. It doesn’t withstand the rough and tough hardness of life and living but easily buckle under the weight of light challenge.

 

Nor has the incubating balm of civilization made them any saner. Much learning, unlike we atheists, does make them mad, change the serenity of their thought, the clarity of their purpose and clear understanding of what their belief could possibly be. Indeed, these pretentious christians really live a lie! Much learning even harden them the more against their “convictions.” It neither smoothen their morals nor sharpen their minds. “Hypocrisy,” Francois de La Rochefoucauld observes, “is a tribute that vice pays to virtue.” With a profaned conscience, these christians live for nothing and die for anything!

 

The scandalous evil and wickedness in society perpetrated by them are clear evidences of their subterfuge and profanity: the corruption and fraud in the offices; the sleazy jokes and immoral lifestyles in their congregations; the betrayals and breakages in their fraternal relationships resulting in an upsurge in divorces; the lurid enactment of licentiousness in their theatres; their unbridled indulgence in illicit drugs; the lurid nudity that dares our sensibilities; the skimpy pageantry of the night daughters of christian Knights; the sexuality in their classy gold-gilded closets; the violence and carnage in street corners; the bestial bloodletting and senseless killings; the blood of their aborted infants crying against the murderous wombs are all open credentials of the misguided proponents of a misused faith.

 

When I go to my popular joint down the dark alley, interestingly owned by a certain church elder, to relax with Winifred or Melinda, over some scorching cold liquor brewed by these moral gatekeepers, I see these christians already seated to have a sleazy sip off the table of infamy, the reason for which they ‘deridingly’ mock me. They preach long sermons on piety, but are living evidences of the perfidy.

 

The more they acquire knowledge and learning, the more they become enamored to renounce the God they profess to worship and honour, marshaling all their intellect to repudiate everything that is virtuous and endearing – the very hallmark of the teachings, I hear, of the God they claim to know but love to dishonour. They’re even oftener ashamed of their Creator, refusing to reverence Him openly and boldly lest the bubble of their social status be busted, or their courted refinement be soiled, or their cherished academic status be ruptured. They say their creator is holy, but they indulge in unbridled profanities in every area of their lives. What an irony!

 

My Avowal!

 

But I, if I should ever believe in the God of heaven and become a Christian, I will love Him with all my heart, I will acknowledge Him with all soul, I will cherish Him with all my mind, I will serve with all my strength.

 

I will not care a hoot what my family or friends will say, whether they will accept my faith or reject it; whether they will deride me and spurn my belief. It wouldn’t matter to me what the world will say. I will fear no man. I will fear only my God until I see Him in glory.

 

I will scorn their gilded toys and falsely acquired laurels. I will spurn their exigent philosophy elegantly hoisted on quick sand. I will hold their pretentious piety with contended contempt. I will guard my conscience with my last breath. The heritage of my heavenly abode, I will sale not!