"Skeptacles": Seeing the world through skeptical looking glass

Guest blogger Peter-John Williams.
Administrator of Facebook group
"Freethinkers & Coexisters Island"

Another early Sunday morning and many in Jamaica are donning their Sunday's best, making sure they look as presentable as possible to enter into church and listen to the gospels being preached by one of Jamaica's many self-proclaimed prophets and holy men. As some are running down the check list of what to bring to church, Ms. Mary is  making a mental note to suggest a group prayer for sister Hyacinth in church so the good Lord will help cure her of this devil induced liver disease she has been afflicted with and making sure to also ask the Lord for help this month because the electricity bill is past due and the lights is about to be disconnected. 

I have to pause for a minute while I put on these "Skeptacles" to ponder and ask myself if many of these Jamaicans ever stop to think about what religion has done to their lives and how the religiosity of the nation has crippled progression and intellectualism in this once great island we call Jamaica. 

Jamaica is culturally and historically rooted in religion, or should I say some form of Christianity. Although Jamaica has a few non-christian religious sects such as Hindus and Muslims, Jamaicans and Jamaica as a country, are predominantly Christian.  So let's try to identify how Jamaica became a Christian nation and how Christianity affects the people of this island.  

Jamaica, for hundreds of years, was colonized by England and was subjected to British rule up until August 6,1962. The African slaves that were brought to Jamaica historically never worshipped or knew anything of Christianity. In order to break and further subjugate the African slaves in Jamaica, physical torture was not enough because it created anger and rebellious behaviour so the slaves were also captured mentally by using Christianity.  The mental fear of eternal damnation in Hell and the hope of eternal bliss and paradise in Heaven was the datum in the total domination of the African slaves in Jamaica.  Total indoctrination was the key to having a successful colony that utilized subjugated slave labour, because even in the very bible that the slaves were taught from and were to use to gain understanding of salvation, were the passages on Slavery and how slaves should obey their masters...  

Fast forward to today and you will see that Jamaica is still enslaved mentally by the same doctrines and book that held us in captivity for hundreds of years.  Christianity facilitates and incubates anti-intellectualism in Jamaica.  Jamaicans are constantly bombarded with the idea that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent by the church, the preachers, by friends, family, by the music and even the government, when in fact those ideas are not only unverifiable, but simply not true in this real world that we live in.  

Looking through our "Skeptacles" we will uncover different ways of looking at Jamaica and the world to find new ways of enlightenment. We will see how much better Jamaica and our individual lives could be if we started seeing through the eyes of a skeptic and not through the eyes of the religious.  You will start to see that although Ms. Mary has good intentions for praying for sister Hyacinth's liver, it won't do any good in the sense of "divine" healing because there is no such thing. We will start to see that the liver disease wasn't caused by the devil but because sister Hyacinth has been a closet alcoholic for many years because of her depression due to her husband leaving her for another woman. The amount of alcohol consumed by her in her lifetime has damaged her liver and only a transplant will save her life. Not prayers.  Ms. Mary will also recognize that the light company will not take payment in prayers and that her husband needs to stop gambling away his paycheck and talking a hold of the house hold finances would be a better way of solving her problems. 

The "Skeptacles" guest blogs will focus on Jamaica, Jamaican religiosity and a path for healing and moving forward progressively.  We have been blinded for too long.  It's time to see with new eyes. 

Continued next week...