Oh this religion-politics!

By Deo K Tumusiime

A task was put before Primary Seven children at a school sports day thus: God created man on the sixth day and God rested on the seventh day. Write the day on which God created man. Now, for many, parents inclusive, the answer to such a question was definitely as simple as drinking a glass of water.

I have chosen to use the word religion-politics to connote the aspect of politics in religion. For starters, the usage of the word "Man" in the bible irrespective of whatever pro arguments the religious people may raise, is quite flawed and only intended to negate the importance of women in society as seen (or unseen) everywhere in the bible.

Man, man, man, what about? Sometimes we forget that all men were actually born of a woman, which could as well mean that the woman was the first human being to be created, but the chauvinistic male species has subdued poor woman way too long. Note that the P.7 Class in question was a class of girls in a girls' school. Imagine just how this "man creation" flattens their imagination and self-worth!

Well, back to the question: Three children gave the answer to the day God created man as "Sabbath". Another gave the answer as "Saturday".  Obviously for many who believe Saturday is Day 6 of the week, Saturday would be the correct answer.

But then you have another school of thought that believes Sabbath is the 7th Day, counting Monday as Day 1 of the week. Others believe Sunday to be the first day of the week, which makes Sabbath fall on a Saturday.

Withstanding the Sunday as the 1st day of the week, would mean Day 1 (Sunday), Day 2 (Monday), Day 3 (Tuesday), Day 4 (Wednesday), Day 5 (Thursday), Day 6 (Friday), Day 7 (Saturday). By this count, the correct answer was given as Friday being the day God created man and ideally meaning God rested on Saturday, which is Day 7 and the last day of the week.

This brings me to more religion-politics: Genesis 1:31 presupposes that God created man on the 6th day (in our case Friday) and rested on the 7th day (Saturday). Up to this point, there oughtn't to be any discrepancy.

Where then did Christians get their calendar of events to suggest that Sunday, widely viewed as the 7th day, the day God rested? How even logical is it for those who believe Sunday as Day 1, that the first day of the week is a public holiday and people begin work on Day 2 of the week!

Well, I can only imagine that this religion-politics issue is not the making of our generation, but must we continue living in historical mistakes as if we are so incapable of stamping our own history and precedents? For starters, I dislike the politics people attach to God, everyone taking advantage of the fact that none of us has ever seen God.

Some think God is a man, so they say "He created us", very few would dare say God is a woman and others believe God is Spirit (Neither He nor She), but still male chauvinists made sure that we call God a "He" quite conveniently.

Some people even think that God is a king seated in the Kingdom of Heaven watching all the drama on planet earth and waiting to receive those who do good after they have died, seated with the angels (who are mostly men) and his son Jesus (another man) and the likes of Abraham, Jacob, Moses and all the great men history outlines.

The point I am driving at, is that we must tone down on religious politics and live life as it most logically makes sense.

I do not give a damn which day God created human beings, whether as written in the bible or not. Our focus should be on the fact that human beings must have been created by a certain super power, call it God or Buddha or Katonda, or what have you.

At least what is within our control is that all of us that qualify to be called human beings, men and women, important or less important, were conceived the same way and born of a woman. Doesn't even matter whether some of us were pushed out normally or born by caesarian section. This should be enough to tell us that our creator is the same.

The question of whether God created human beings on the 6th day and rested on the 7th day for me is quite immaterial. None of us can ascertain with precision when God stamped the creation cycle.

From our human perspective, we definitely need time in a week to rest, which we've come to know as Saturday and Sunday. We can agree to sustain Monday as the first day of the week without recourse to religious imaginations.

No one needs heavenly authorisation to stamp this-after all, that is the life we ordinarily live. What many people may not realise is that this religion-politics business confuses not just children but adults too unnecessarily. In the end, those who pray on Saturday (7th Day Adventists) feel they are more important than Christians, who pray on Sunday and Muslims who pray on Friday.

Then we start furthering extremist tendencies based on stuff like which animal God said we should eat and not eat, dominion over this and that, forgetting that if a dog or lion got this man on a good day, it would also have him for lunch!

I am even beginning to think that religious education should be banned in schools, because religions disagree on basic human principles.

Children must be allowed the latitude to define what makes sense to them and what does not, a step towards human freedom. But it we must define some things as per school curriculums, we must have harmonised understanding based on evidenced real life notions that are not skewed up by religious inconsistencies.

Days of the week should have nothing at all to do with religion. 

Writer is a communications consultant