Moralizing the relationship between religious experience and the Nigerian society

Abstract

Religious experience is a claim that direct experience of the supernatural or God is possible; it is the belief that a certain communication can take place between man and God. This particular belief has served as one of the proofs for the reality and existence of God. Outcomes of religious experience may be in the form of prophesy, miracles, money rituals, protection rituals, speaking in tongues, falling under the anointing and other charismatic displays. This (religious experience) has raised a number of epistemic issues in philosophy as a result of the nature of the ‘beings’ (man and God) involved. Man by nature is finite and material while God is infinite and immaterial, therefore whatever experience that occurs between them must raise some questions. Most of these questions border on the veridicality of religious experience, that is, how true is religious experience? In spite of these questions on religious experience, the world today is agog with so many claims of religious experience. Nigeria, for example, is replete with myriad of claims of religious experiences which are prevalent in both our traditional and foreign religions. This paper tries to interrogate the impact of these religious experiences in Nigeria by subjecting such impact to moral justifiability. After exploring the arguments on religious experience and its impact on the Nigerian society, the paper submits that a line should be drawn between what may be genuine religious experience and its abusive version with sole purpose of defrauding the gullible citizens which is morally condemnable.