Jambo
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Hello,
I am from a country where atheists are a tad more numerous than fleas in glass of beer. Quite a number of years ago, when our ancestors walked this earth, some people who looked like they had never been in the sun came to our lands and told us that they have come with a message from the god of our forefathers. We invited them to sit under the Mugumo tree as that was where messages from Nyaga used to come from but they insisted that they have to build a stone edifice since this new god only lived inside large huts built of stone. My ancestors watched in amazement as they proceeded to get our young men help them build a large stone hut and didn't even leave an area to build a fire!
When they saw that we were amazed they said they would show us the power of their god. The pointed sticks at nearby elephants which spoke with a loud noise so that the elephants fainted and died. They frightened so many elephants that our morans tried to stop them. These men with pale faces then pointed their sticks at our morans who on hearing the noise fell down too and died. They then proceeded to cut the tusks off the elephants and leave all the meat to rot. They told us that the useless tusks were valuable and the meat uneatable. Seeing the disdain they new people had for hunger, and the power they came with, my ancestors entered the large stone hut and worshiped this new god. By the time they got out of the stone hut those over clothed people had fenced off large tracts of land and told my ancestors that this no longer belonged to them. They were then told that they descended from some fellow whose name sounded, in the pale face language, like a succulent piece of pig and they were expected to now serve the new god and, by extension, the new god's people. It took two generations for them to realise the trick that had been played upon them.
The paleface has now largely gone from our lands but his god remains and is worshiped with even more zeal now. A large part of "African" culture has been replaced by this new god's commands. Our people are now ashamed of their bodies and cover them to hide them from "innocent" eyes. We have abandoned the thingira and now live in stone houses. The mugumo tree no longer issues the instructions of Nyaga and we rely on men with flowing robs to tell us what to do.
Well... some of us...
I hope you'll find me acceptable to your community.
Double S
Cogito, ergo sum: I perceive, thus I do sums.
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I live in Canada. I have done some travelling in West Africa but that was back in the 80's. Which country are you in?
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Welcome to the forum, and where I'm from, flees do indeed come in glasses of beer, along with other unidentifiable stuff.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
I think you'll fit in quite nicely. I like your style.
Welcome. I love your avatar.
Welcome aboard. Glad to have you here.
It is refreshing to hear from someone who has shaken the god delusion even though they may be in a largely religious country.
Congratulations on breaking free from the lies and the illusions.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
Hi, Welcome!
I spent over 5 weeks in Africa a bit over ten years ago, mainly in Kenya, Botswana, and Namibia, basically a wild-life and scenic photography tour. Memorable.
Your comments about the effect of missionaries reminded me of a thought I had while visiting a country much closer to me, the Solomon Islands. We were entertained by singing and dancing a couple of times, and I realized the songs they were singing were Christian hymns, not from the original native culture...
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Welcome to the forum.
That was a very nice post.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
I don't want to hear about your woes. I am a Redskins fan. If that doesn't prove that life is a crap shoot, I don't know what will.
BTW, welcome.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'm in Kenya. Way down in East Africa.
Not many people, even in Kenya, remember what we had before Christianity took over. The language, culture, mores and norms have been heavily influenced by Christianity and in some places I doubt whether an ancestor coming back would even recognise us at all.
Cogito, ergo sum: I perceive, thus I do sums.
I really should blame my father for that. When I learned to read his library opened up a world for me. He had quite a lot of religious texts as well as writings from Christian apologists. For some reason he also had the Book of Mormon as well as the Qu-aran. Curiosity, I guess, made me read all these and that made me reread the bible. I guess reading the bible in light of other scripts as well seeing text that could not really be justified opened up my hand. Discovering that there was no tooth fairy was probably the proverbial straw.
Cogito, ergo sum: I perceive, thus I do sums.
Thank you people.
I still need to find my way around this forum but I'll certainly be seeing you, or at the least, discussing with you soon.
Cogito, ergo sum: I perceive, thus I do sums.