Appearance and Reality behind the Proliferation of Religious

Buildings
Felix Peter Vogarempi
Email: meetvogarempi@yahoo.com, Phone: 08068811632
One of the most undeniable fact about philosophers is their ability to
distinguish between appearance and reality, furthermore their willingness
to examine human activities to see whether they are actually realizing
their intended objectives. As a philosopher myself, I am suprised at the
proliferation of religious buildings especially churches and mosques found
within our communities in Nigeria, religious buildings are springing up
everyday, raising fears not only of spiritual confusion but also secular
concerns about noise and inconvenience. it is difficult to cross a street in
Nigeria without sighting church, mosques, Christian school, islamiya or
almajiri schools, they are too many, everywhere, gradually we are at the
point where every house is either having mosque or church depending on
the religious belief of the owner, most of these religious buildings
(churches or it affiliate and mosques or it affiliate) are strategically built
where a passer-by can see or get a glimpse of it. Do these Religious
buildings signifies what they appears to be or their main intention is
hidden? The unexamined life is not worth living is a famous dictum
apparently uttered by Socrates as described in Platos apology. Why are
people not questioning the proliferation of religious buildings? We should
not be more religious than the religion itself, to be able to distinguished
appearance from reality of this proliferation of religious buildings lets first
understand what religion is.
Religion is an institutionalized or personal system of beliefs and
practices relating to the divine while religious buildings refers to a building
used for public worship, teaching, meetings and activities by certain
religious group be it Christians, Muslim or African Religious worshippers.
Rationale for Many Religious Building
Ours is a country where religious people are struggling everyday to assert
that their religion has the highest numbers of followers and if given
chance they can name or call Nigeria as Islamic country or Christian
country, therefore the only way to show this, is through the propaganda of
seeing is believing, and this is done through indiscriminately raising
religious structures everywhere such as churches, mosques or schools
runned by this religious body, The pulse of the passer-by may quicken on
seeing this too many religious buildings and activities and begins to think
we have too many religious people here in Nigeria, but the honest truth is
some of these religious buildings are nuisance, the occupant make a lot of
noise whenever they are holding their activities, you can't even have time
to reflect if you happens to be their neighbour because of their noise.
Some of the preachers or proprietors of these religious buildings are
charlatans conning the gullible with messages of impending doom. Their

messages have/are pitching Nigerians against each other, that is why

Nigeria is always experiencing religious crisis in matters that can be
settled within neighbours or community levels.
Reality of this Religious Buildings
It is surprising with these too many religious building carrying religious
activities and yet our country is being consumed by so much filth, and this
brings me to what are the reality behind this religious houses? Most of
these religious building signify an unhealthy competition between
Christians and Moslem, because ours is a society where Christians or
Moslems are struggling everyday to show to the world they have the
highest numbers of followers in Nigeria while in essence there are few true
christians and Moslems in Nigeria who can be termed Religious people.
Behind the appeared religious activities going on within some of these
religious building, some other meeting are also held which may not be for
the good interest of all people, it is within some of these religious
buildings some people are brainwashed and led into some unwated
activities. Some of theses structures are also use as a den of extremist
while using religious activities as an alibi
Conclusion
It is obvious that freedom of worship is enshrined under Nigeria's
constitution but there should be regulation if not some of these unbridled
religious buildings and their activities may continue to divide Nigerian
peace, because Some of the religious buildings have large congregations,
but their proprietors are inexperienced and fanatics it is within these kind
of setting that the seed of terrorism are planted, most of these self
appointed leaders preach what will suit them not the scriptural truth.