Comic and actor Nana Tornado has opened up about his thoughts on religion, indicating he was a “freethinker” and “not a religious person”.

He spoke to Nana Romeo on Accra 100.5 FM’s Ayekoo Ayekoo.

God

“I believe there’s a creator but since no one can prove there’s a creator, I’m not here to think about the creator. I’m here to do what the creator has asked me to do. He’s given me a mind, hands, and eyes. While I’m here, I’ll do what a human is expected to do,” Nana Tornado explained.

He said looking for the creator was unnecessary and not pragmatic.

“You are using this computer. Why would you go looking for the maker? For what exactly? You bought the computer for work so why are you looking for the maker? God has made us and given us a mind and everything else to function. So what are looking for him for? That’s what I believe in,” he said.

Prayer

He laughed when prayer was brought up.

“I was like that before because my father was a pastor,” he added.

He observed, “In Christianity, what believe in is miracles. But as I became a freethinker, I just realised that everything in this world is 99 per cent effort. Even if prayer works, it’s one per cent because words are powerful.”

Afterlife

Nana Tornado challenged the belief in heaven and hell.

“I believe in reincarnation. But there’s nothing like you’re going to heaven or you’re going to hell” he said.

“Those in Nsawam [prison] are in hell.”

Morals

He said, having been given “a mind in your head,” unless one was a “fool,” they had to “know good morals” and be able to tell “good from bad”.

He said a “rational human being” engaging in theft meant they were “a fool”.

Judgement

Nana Tornado expressed his conviction “we all reap what we sow in one way or the other.

“If you don’t pay in this generation, you’ll pay in your next life.”

He asserted though “not all,” disabled people including “the blind, crippled, one-handed,” were justly suffering and “paying for what they did in their previous life”.

Reincarnation

Despite his earlier statement, he indicated he did not know for a fact he was reincarnated even though his family had told him he behaved like a late uncle of his called Kwaku Mensa who was US-based.

Protection

For his safety, he underlined he did not rely on prayer but endeavoured to “always take God and Satan out of every equation, and think as a rational human being”.

He posited the moment a freethinker thought superstitiously, “the divinely-bestowed mind ceases to work.

“That will make me think someone has jinxed me when I itch. When I drink, I stop at my limit, and if I don’t and I drive and die, it’s my own foolishness that led to it. I’ll never put the blame on anybody.”

Spells

Nana Tornado said he did not believe in the casting of spells and black magic, “and so I don’t know if it works or not. I don’t know. I know people who claim it works but it’s not my style”.

To emphasise he had no ill-intensions for anyone and so was no afraid of any spells, he noted, “Excuse me to say, when I sleep, I don’t even think of my own child.”

Police Escort

When he was asked why he moved about with a police escort, he responded, “If you can afford it, why not?

“If you can afford to have a watchman for your house, you don’t owe anyone explanations about it. Your money, your power.”