God Above Everything

Cross River State is known as the 'Ocean of Christianity' and you will not meet one person who will not speak about religion to you, its the most important thing in their lives and as far as i know everyone is mad about religion. Just imagine how Americans are when they run around dancing in church, its like that but 100 times worse! They believe in evil spirits, witches and miracle healing, so you can imagine how intense it is. Most times when i meet someone new they say, are you religious? and you are judged on how good a person you are based purely on religion. My host family is extremely religious and trying to express my opinion is an absolute nightmare. I try to say I'm spiritual and believe morals are a more important thing than being 'catergorised' into a religion. The responses are very defensive and my opinion goes unheard of. It's religious blindness. "Who do you thank when you wake up?" "You will go to hell if you don't have faith!" With my conversations with everyone and the experience in churches, for me its just bullying tactics for you to become religious. "Shit!, even I'm a good person, do good things, help out others and try my best to make a difference I'm still going to hell! I guess i have to become religious" If that's the message then it goes totally against my way of life and beliefs. I would like to believe if there's a god, he would judge you on the person you are and what you have achieved in life. Oh and by the way im in no way an atheist, I'm quite open in my opinion and do believe that there is something greater, so I'm not just slagging off religion. At one point the religious aspect was really affecting my happiness here because it was so intense. Most mornings my host family wake up around 6am and pray for nearly an hour, then they can have the same prayer at lunch and even longer at night (not to mention services and church can sometimes be in between prayers). So in the morning they would get angry if i did not wake in time for prayers. One week was so intense it seemed i was praying constantly. I prayed in the morning, then said i had to go for out and they asked me to have a 'quick' prayer which made me late at lunch, then after spending the whole day flooring a school, i was shattered but they forced me to pray for an hour with them when i wanted to go to bed. Church usually lasts 3 hours but I've definitely got past the most intense part and I've accepted the fact i have to pray. It's part of the Nigerian culture so it will be good to look back on. At first they saw me as an opportunity sent by god to be changed to a believer but now i guess they just see me as the devil haha! I guess the hardest part for me is the fact that no one was listening to my opinion or respecting it when i was respecting theirs. But hey ho, I think the only way to conclude this is to say 'Thank God' I'm open minded.