I was a teenager in 1993 when David Koresh and the Waco incident happened a few miles from me.
That was my first clear thought that SOME religious people were crazy...and in my town.

The year before I had heard of riots in India, of Hindus killing Muslims in a village, called a pogrom. I was shocked because I had always thought Hindiusm (some of my relatives are Hindu) as a peaceful nonviolent religion. (And now we have violent Buddhists too, smh). It was my first clear thought that any religion can turn good people into crazy people who do bad things (yes I know Hitchens popularized it, I wouldn't hear of Hitchens until a decade later.)

In 1997 the Heaven's gate ritual mass suicides happpened. I remember thinking how does anyone choose to die in a beautiful place like San Diego? It's crazy! Then of course the news brings up Jamestown. And suddenly this crazyness didn't seem isolated to the 90's. Maybe its just these isolated cult religious groups. You don't see that happening in mainstream religions.

In 2001, of course, 9-11 happened. And that's when I realized ALL religious people are crazy. Yes ALL religions. I lived in Texas. I saw first hand how religious people behaved and talked.

And then the Iraq war started in 2003..and is still going on.

That's when I made a personal breakthrough (obvious in hindsight):
We are talking about people who can be or have been convinced that an IDEA is more important than HUMAN LIFE. It's the same concept as killing and dying for your country.

It became very real for me: all religous people can, have, and will kill you in service to their god. They. Are. Crazy. Even the nice ones. More insidiously they clearly discriminate against you just because you are not part of their religion. Even the nice ones.

I cannot tell you how much I subconciously Iived in fear of religious people in the 2000s. If you told me you went to church, or mosque or temple...I would dissapear from your life.

Today I have young colleagues who come from a heavy religious background, and I can't avoid them due to work. It may not be fair to them, but I look at them as bad news waiting to happen. I pretend to be interested in their religion but sometimes I ask a dumb question that ends up poking holes in their logic and I back off. I never ever insult them or their religion. Remember, always: religuous people are potentiqlly psycho crazy killers.

This Nigerian dude...he didnt realize, much like I didnt realize, that religious members of his own community are crazy psycho killers who dress nicely and speak politely.

I hope he gets out of there alive.

"Under international human rights law, Mr. Bala has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of this choice, including his right not to follow any particular religion"- I wish all governments and societies around the world respected this.
This man is a true activist; risking his life to change his country for the better. I had never heard about this case before today, I wish these types of situations were more covered by the news.

The U.K. Government should be doing more to pressure Nigeria in this case, we need to make it clear that no country can remain in the British Commonwealth if it persecutes it’s own citizens for exercising their human right to hold and express humanist views.