[shaka_remix]

A religion is the most basic expression of what a culture believes.
Many may not relaize the power of belief, this is what it is: "a hypnotist once hypnotized someone and made them "believe" that an ice cube was a hot coal, upon placing the ice cube on his arm it left a burn. Point being psychology and uganga are interchangeable terms. I'm quite passionate about the supernatural realm. Anyway that is not my point. The question I pose to you is Chinese have confucianism, Indians have Hindu, Babylon has Christianity but what do Africans have? It is the belief in animals e.g. The Omweri drought saga in Kisumu!, Rainmakers and honouring/comunicating with our ancestors, you have the uncanny ability to see animal spirits in people, if you know the way that animal behaves, you know what to expect in terms of behavior from these people but we have been educated not to see these abilities because they make us very powerful . Anyway we have our own religion but often disregard it and look to the west, for a shaky belief system that often neglects discipline and often emphasizes being nice and following like a sheep and not thinking which is what characterizes part of the African personality as Dr.Nkruma stated, you have gift from your ancestors, the gift comes from their discipline and constant state of though! Will you pass this gift on to your children?" The result of our young nation mimicking the west will result practically in : pedaphile priests, broken marriages , men marrying men, kids shooting up schools etc. That is the vision that we will bring to life if we keep making our young nation mimick the western values! We need to look toward Panafricanism and reviving our systems, improving upon those ancient systems and only incorporating what we value from others. Because after all, Shaka Zulu was quoted saying:
"The leopard would be a fool to refuse wings, if they were offered to him."

[reggie_woic]

+ Excellent post, Shaka!

+ while i may not know much about the real African religion, the change in direction that people are taking away from it towards western ones
is called "enlightenment".

+ besides, i see nothing wrong with the "western religion", especially
the one i have embraced. looking at the African ones now, you can point out quite a number of mistakes. sacrificing virgins isn't appealing in
any religion.

[chotadipo]

>+ besides, i see nothing wrong with the "western religion",
>especially
>the one i have embraced. looking at the African ones now, you
>can point out quite a number of mistakes. sacrificing virgins
>isn't appealing in
>any religion.

So does enslaving the black man and treating him as crap because some Jew folk tale said so.

[ATLian]

>besides, i see nothing wrong with the "western religion",
>especially
>the one i have embraced. looking at the African ones now, you
>can point out quite a number of mistakes. sacrificing virgins
>isn't appealing in
>any religion.

@Reggie,

I hope you know that Jehovah also accepted a virgin sacrifice in the Bible. It's one of those storos that they didn't teach us in Sunday School coz it made god look bad, but it's true. Pole, but Jehovah shares a few abhorrible traits with our evil African gods...

[teejay]

>I hope you know that Jehovah also accepted a virgin sacrifice
>in the Bible. It's one of those storos that they didn't teach
>us in Sunday School coz it made god look bad, but it's true.
>Pole, but Jehovah shares a few abhorrible traits with our evil
>African gods...

Some reference please buddy.

[petermaumau]

Do you still refer to the story in Judges where Japhthae promised to offer whatever met him first as a burnt sacrifice to God..

Well she was offered for a burnt sacrifice but was she offered as a burnt sacrifce..Even If She was, God is God..IF You want to see that He can be in our view very cruel, Just look at the way he destroyed SOdom and GOmorrah, The way HE Ordered The Israelites to Kill Everyliving thing When they arrived at the promised land and The way He Actually delighted in Killing His own son for our sins.. Interesting
ANyway There is only One God..African or Not

[ATLian]

>Some reference please buddy.

TeeJay,

for someone who claims to know the Bible as much as you do, I'm kinda shocked that you don't know this story. It looks like I was correct in assuming that you were never taught this storo in Sunday School. I don't blame your pastors though for ignoring it, since it paints god in really bad light for him to be accepting virgin sacrifices like the other heathen gods.

In a nutshell, Judges Chapter 11 is about this chap called Jephthah the Gileadite, and the way he led the Israelites to a victorious genocidal war against the Ammonites. Since Jephthah wasn't sure that the Israelites were going to win the war, he vowed to god in verses 30 & 31 that "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that WHATSOEVER COMETH FORTH OF THE DOORS OF MY HOUSE TO MEET ME, WHEN I RETURN in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD'S, and I WILL OFFER IT UP FOR A BURNT OFFERING."

God, as usual, gladly let the Israelites commit another act of genocide, and in verses 32 & 33, he "delivered them (Ammonites) into his (Jehpthah's) hands. And he smote them from Aroer, even till thou come to Minnith, [even] twenty cities, and unto the plain of the vineyards, with a very great slaughter."

When Jephthah went back home, the first thing that met him at the door was his daughter, who also happened to be his only child. Of course Jephthah was devastated, and so was his daughter. But like the staunch believers they were, they both accepted that he must keep his vows to god, and that he must spill her blood to appease god. The only thing she asked was that she be allowed 2 months to grieve the fact that she would die as a virgin.

When she was done grieving with her pals, she came back home and her father, to quote the Bible in verse 39, "did with her [according] to his vow which he had vowed". To even the most skeptical person, this obviously means that Jephthah killed her and offered her as a burnt offering to Jehovah.

After her sacrifice, "it was a custom in Israel, [That] the daughters of Israel went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year." I don't know if the Israelites still mourn for her sad death every year.

BTW everything I've written in quotes above is quoted verbatim from the Bible. I've made none of this stuff up.

[ATLian]

This Jephthah story brings up some things to think about.

First, it's a fact that god does and DID accept human sacrifices. i.e. virgin human sacrifice to an all-powerful male god. So why do Christians chew out other religions whose gods do the same?

Secondly, Jephthah was the definitely the dumbest idiot of his era. What did he expect to be the first thing to meet him at home, a cow? A chicken? Of course it was going to be a human being.

Third, Jephthah was one of god's great men, as seen in verse 11 when "the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah". I think it says a lot that one of god's chosen men committed filicide i.e. killing your daughter. The irony is the same people who call him a great man despite the filicide will chew out Mohammed for his pedophilia.

Also, is this story only famous because Jephthah sacrificed his daughter? As in, are there other instances of such vows, but where the conquering hero was met by an irrelevant slave who's sacrifice didn't deserve mention? Or instances where the vow said something like "I'll sacrifice the first non-relative I meet when I get home", etc.

Finally, why did god accept Jephthah's vow in the first place? God knew from Day One that the person who would meet Jephthah would be his daughter, yet he still accepted the vow.

[ATLian]

>Do you still refer to the story in Judges where Japhthae
>promised to offer whatever met him first as a burnt sacrifice
>to God..

MauMau,

That's the story I was refering to.



>Well she was offered for a burnt sacrifice but was she offered
>as a burnt sacrifce..

Read my post above. She was offered AND eventually sacrificed to god.



>Even If She was, God is God..

And that's my issue. You'll rant and rave that your god is a good god who cannot accept a human sacrifice. Then we show you evidence that your god did accept human sacrifice. Then you again rant and rave that it's OK for god to accept human sacrifices because "God is God", and he can do whatever he wants, and whatever he wants will be good, just and right. i.e. Euthypro's Dilemma. Now that is some twisted apologetic insane reasoning, it just holds absolutely no water.



>The way He Actually delighted in Killing
>His own son for our sins..

Is that a trait that you're actually proud of?

[reggie_woic]

+ however true that may be, ATLian, its all in the old and i stress "OLD" testament.
(why the perfect God "changed his mind" is an argument for another time)
while christianity has now completely embraced life even of the most vile humans possible,
things don't seem to have changed much on the African religion part.