Bob marley said in one of his song titled Redemption Song"emancipate yourself from mental slavery. No one but ourselves can free our minds" The only problem there is that the African man cannot free his mind. He needs somebody to do it for him.

^its NOT TRUE.

im African and i follow my own direction. people of Africa MUST believe in themselves and their true religions instead of following white man and his bunch of lies.

So Africans are religious willy nilly. Africans profess all sorts of religious crap even when they know it is all nonsense.

Religion may indeed be nonsense, but I doubt that those who practice it know and believe it is nonsense.

God did not give us a brain for fancy.

Who know why Aficans like anything anymore. We just try and copy what everybody else is doing. If the white man worship stone, the we would be worshiping stones right now.  

We are soldiers. We are soldiers.

Fighting for Islam. Fighting for Islam

In the name of Allah, we shall conquer, we shall conquer

But I have also heard the christian version of this song being song in secondary school morning devotions, in some churches, and by the Salvation army.

lots of misconceptions in this here thread. the white man did not bring religion to us. we brought religion to the white man. we brought religion to the greeks. all the manuscripts used to write the bible were brought to the greeks by africans. what the white man did is regurgitate a Europeanized version of our own religion to us. now 'spirituality' is a wonderful thing. without it, the world will be lost as you can see symptoms of today. africas problems do not lie in religion. thats a cop-out. africas problems lie with africans. we are a race (same all over the world where you find us) that thrives on instant gratification and overt materialism. anyone with this kind of mindset is by default a non-productive citizen of the world because wherever you find yourself (in govt, police, customs, etc etc ) you will only be looking out for one person, and thats yourself. thats the BLACK MANS problem all over the world. not religion.

Fellow Nigerians quit fighting/killing yourselves over Christainity and Islam.

Ifa is the way forward, it is not a religion but a way of life, the religion of our forefathers.

ABOSISE

BEWARE ACCORDING THE THE BIBLE BOOK OF COLOSSIANS 2vs8, LEAST ANY MAN SPOIL WITH VAIN DECEPT AFTER THE TRADITION OF MEN AFTER THE RUDIMENTS OF THE WORD AND NOT AFTER CHRIST, LOOK THIS OUR GENERATION IS LIKE THE GENERATION OF NOAH THEY NEVER BELIEVED NOAH UNTIL NOAH ENTERED THE ARK AND THE FLOOD AND AS MANY THAT DISBELIEVE THE PREACHING OF NOAH WERE ALL DESTROYED, UNTIL JESUS COMES DAT IS WHEN UNA EYES GO CLEAR, MAKE UNA CONTINUE TO DOUBT AND CONTINUE TO DISCOURAGE PEOPLE FROM ACCEPTING OUR LORD JESUS. HELL FIRE DEY WAIT FOR UNA

peckhamboi:

Fellow Nigerians quit fighting/killing yourselves over Christainity and Islam.

Ifa is the way forward, it is not a religion but a way of life, the religion of our forefathers.

ABOSISE

^true talk. i congratulate you on your success of freeing yourself from the evil shackles. YORUBA BROTHERS. LISTEN!!!!!!!!!!!! (and you too sweetnecta)  

South-East:

But I have also heard the christian version of this song being song in secondary school morning devotions, in some churches, and by the Salvation army.

yes christians are the worst form of hippocrites. they say no to idolatory, yet worship jesus and mary idols. WE PAGANS WORSHIP IDOLS OF GOD WHILE THE XTIANS WORSHIP IDOLS OF MEN.

why are you contradicting the light< contradicting the truth<>the wisdoms of the wise is the foolisness of God
one unGodly person posted and went away and you guys are killin and causin your selves>><<shame on you
so easy to decieve>><<God pls bless Catholic church Amen

frosbel:

What an utterly silly statement.

America is one of the most religious countries in the world and is also  the most advanced. I will give you a long rope to try and refute this so that I can 'hang' you with it. 

Saudi Arabia and Dubai are also ALLAH countries even though I shiver to say they are also well of and advanced.

Britain , Germany etc were until the last few decades ( and in many cases still are ) very religious countries.

Tell me where you get your daft ideas from  !!!!

America is not a religious country as you claimed.80% of Americans don't go church even on Sunday.The very few who go to church are old people and is very difficult to see most Americans discuss religion the way Nigerians do(miracle healing,deliverance,prosperity,monthly night vigil ect).
I don't see religion solving the problems in Africa in 100 years from now.

^bad religion wont solve African problems.

Africans are religious cos must of them lack wisdom and they dont think for them selves. nice 1 bro

so what are you guys saying , that there is no God

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people." Karl Max was right

For a number of reasons:

Africans are religious

1.)  , because it is a poverty mentality in  most under developed countires. When the basic necessities of lie are not readily available as should be. People rely on some 'super' being to get what should ideally be their rights. A typical day for a Nigerian for example:

You pray as soon as you wake up, for safety to work and back, against armed robbers, accidents etc. you remember to add car problems and the silly ogas that can penalise you for no just cause. Pray against hold up, or for fuel or light etc. The possibility of something not forseen happening is 99.9%. You remember the days you forgot to dedicate your day to God and how many things go wrong. Memories of stories of people that didn't pray to God and everything went pear shaped is still fresh on your mind, as stressed by your pastor/imams etc yesterday.

A UK resident for example knows if he wakes up at 6, he needs 30 minutes to take a shower, iron get to the bustop or train station at say 7:42, that bus arrives at 7:45, the journey takes 30 minutes at the time of the day, he is at work by 8:15 leaves him 15 minutes to grab a coffee before work starts at 8:30. He knows so far he is at his desk for so so days a month, come 25th of that month, a certain amount must hit his account. He knows the total bills and expenditure required of him monthly; council tax, average electricity/water/gas bill. No oga just has any power to pick on him or make his life unreasonable, otherwise he takes the company to employers tribunal.

My naija brother on the other hand, does not know how much he would need for his generator, or whether the transformer might be stolen or the whole neighbourhood needs to donate to buy anew one. whether area boys would obtain today or not, he might run into someone or someone runs into him, extra unplanned gbese. The company might say, the have are short on cash, and hold salaries. Oga methu might take a dislike for you, and cause you to lose your job on the spot. etc

2.)  , because it is a weapon on the vulnerable and stupid; of which many Africans fails prey. When ppl choose not to apply themselves or knowledge but appoint someone else to do the job, you get religion of all sorts on a large scale.  People are brainwashed into subservient.

need to get back to work, would continue later,

it is more than mere excused to believe in God

dayotheone:

so what are you guys saying , that there is no God

People are just looking for ways of running away from the truth and they know it deep down within that they can only deceive themselves and not those who understand what religion should be. Man has only given religion a wrong name unfortunately and painted it real bad. Man is not only physical. What you see is not all that there is to life and you cannot dispute that! If man is not only physical, there exists a metaphysical state of man.

Its not today the first time, neither will it be the last that God has confounded the wisdom of the wise even in their so called professions. Take Doctors for example, the ones that have seen things in their little life will tell you that though they don’t believe in it, there has to be some higher powers that confounds them when their own wisdom and expertise falls short.

You guys have not watched a magician in real life have you? If you have you will not be saying things like Religion is this or that. If you cannot explain how things happen with your natural mind, then you must conclude that it is ethereal or celestial.

To those who are very aware of who they are, man is able to reach into his true self which is made after the likeness of God and work out the realities of God in his daily life.

I am an advocate of using religion the right way. No doubt erudite scholars, and scientists, both Muslim and Christians have contributed in no small measure to the inventions and betterment of the world.  

Christianity for instance preaches love, peace, brotherliness, unity, faith, hope, longsuffering, joy, etc as the fruits of the Spirit; imagine if everyone follows this, how would the world be today? If people can walk together and agree on the above cardinals of unity, tell me how they won’t make the world a better place. It is only because the practitioners have perverted / misinterpreted parts of their religious texts to suit their inordinate ambitions that has given religion a bad name.

Conclusion:

Religion is not bad in itself, in actual fact, it is the way to go only if the elements of unity in all of the various religions are used rightly but unfortunately the world (not only Africans) has used it for the wrong reasons.

Evil Brain:

Google is your friend.

American school age children routinely test well below their peers in other developed countries in reading, comprehension and maths skills. Nobody measures educational development using the tertiary level. The vast majority of people don't go to college.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0923110.html

Best has many meanings. They may have the best machines and the most expensive equipment but when tens of millions cannot afford even basic preventative care, its a bit difficult to claim that they're the best. Also, the bolded above is a barefaced lie. Stop watching Fox News.

Their life expectancy is 78.3 according to Wikipedia. They are 36th in the world right behind Cuba, a third world country. Macau is actually 27 places above them! I said that they had the lowest life expectancy in the developed world but it turns out that Portugal's is slightly worse, my bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

I usually stay out of threads like this but like politicians people seem to quote things out of context to suite their purpose.

Since you quoted Wiki, you might like to know one of the actual criterions used to determine a developed nation and how the US actually ranks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide.

Also, read the link below to see that there are no accepted established criteria for ranking "developed" countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developed_country

So how does the US rate when you use GDP, the market value of goods and services?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)

In summary, the US is one of the most developed countries in the world and its ranking depends on the criterion used. What you fail to realize is that the US has over 312,000,000 (312 million) people and there's no way that there won't be sections of the country, especially in underprivileged areas, doing "bad". Most of the countries you are comparing with the US only has about 1/10 its population! Cuba’s population is only 11 million, which is the size of a city.

Here's a listing of countries by population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population

We are religious because of our level of development. We still think the way our ancestors used to think, believing in spirits to solve   practical problems. Bible to give us children, Koran to help us win wars and Juju to give us money. The mind is not yet enlightened, we are yet to break free from the shackles of dogma. The developed World was once like that but they have moved on and embraced science and reason while we are still stuck in the World of spirits and make belief. Our brain is like that of a child, still developing but at a very slow pace. We will get there it might just take a bit of time.

Guys and Gals don't get too excited and hyperactive.

Let us bring this discussion back into perspective.

Africans have always been religious even before the white man paid a visit to that dark continent, and I use the word dark here in the past tense.

The religion of those days was primarily the worship of idols and spirits. All our ancestors were partakers of this religion.

When I therefore read comments made by some so called enlightened souls here , suggesting that we are religious because of poverty , it astonishes me because in a veiled way this is an insult.

Anything you believe in is a religion even atheism, though the rampaging atheists will soon throw their toys, dummies and all , out of the pram to suggest the contrary.

My scientific conclusion is that man is inherently in search of his maker, either consciously or subconsciously  and it is this great yearning that leads us to believe in all sorts of religions including the cult of atheism.

Not all can be right though. In my Opinion Jesus is the way , the truth and the life.

All else is fallacy and deceit.

But just to reinforce my point, religious countries such as Malaysia , America , UAE , Israel etc etc are advanced irrespective of their religion.

The problem with the black man goes deeper than religion and I intend to address this in another article.

The jews are religious aren't they ? You tell me whether their people are not amongst the best in virtually all aspects of human endeavours! So what are we really saying then ?

Religion, when used positively, which is the way it should be, develops rather than inhibits growth and development!

There is no gainsaying that fact people!

So, African states are in shit , not because they are religious; you can clearly attribute it to some other factors!

Lets see how frosbel do justice to those other factors.

Thank you.

Nice read. Like in my belief, religious affinity is the reason Africans remain poor and unproductive. Africans are notoriously religious. We translate every facets of reality in religious terms. We have been cobwebbed over time abt meaningless religious sanctions that indicate nothing other than foolery. It is when the realization of the banes of deep religious affinity is removed from our covens, shall we see remarkable improvements in our collective lives.

^^^


If it was not for the religious Jew or white man, you will still be walking about naked with sheep skin, marrying 100 wives and hunting for animals , and picking fruits for survival.

Point of correction, brethren. Firstly, the jews may be religious, but they are no mental slaves to religious dogma the way africans are. Secondly, the state of Israel has one of the highest percentage of atheists and non-religious in their population. FACT.

cgift:

The jews are religious aren't they ? You tell me whether their people are not amongst the best in virtually all aspects of human endeavours! So what are we really saying then

That may be so, but religion is never used positively - at least is not the case in Africa - but negatively most times, so your point is moot.

cgift:

Religion, when used positively, which is the way it should be, develops rather than inhibits growth and development!

cgift:

The jews are religious aren't they ? You tell me whether their people are not amongst the best in virtually all aspects of human endeavours! So what are we really saying then ?

Religion, when used positively, which is the way it should be, develops rather than inhibits growth and development!

There is no gainsaying that fact people!

So, African states are in poo , not because they are religious; you can clearly attribute it to some other factors!

Lets see how frosbel do justice to those other factors.

Thank you.

Religion has never been a catalyst for economic growth anywhere, the Jews that are successful in the US work in Hollywood,producing  violent movies and in banking and investments,where they steal from the working class folks, I wouldn't exactly call either of those practices  as being in line with strict Jewish tenets.

That is why the white man is your god that you worship every day of your life. Pathetic.

frosbel:

^^^


If it was not for the religious Jew or white man, you will still be walking about Unclad with sheep skin, marrying 100 wives and hunting for animals , and picking fruits for survival.

kabukabu:

Religion has never been a catalyst for economic growth anywhere, the Jews that are successful in the US work in Hollywood,producing  violent movies and in banking and investments,where they steal from the working class folks, I wouldn't exactly call either of those practices  as being in line with strict Jewish tenets.

Let me drag you back to reality, we are talking about Israel here and the positive contribution of Jews , many of them devout.

If you so hate GOD , go and live in Russia or North Korea and enjoy the madness.

After all these coutries are full to the brim with your foolish atheist brothers ,  .

This is one of the major reasons why most Africans do not THINK! They put religion/faith over REASON.

These imported religions are making us kill each other in Africa. "Religion is the opium of the people". It is ironic that the same religions we are obsessed to was brought to us by the "slave masters"(Europeans/Arabs) who continue to see us and treat us as inferiors. Wake UP Africans. Think , please let us start THINKING!!!!

I would not totally agree with u guys. Religion is not the problem of africa, rather it is the IMPORTED religions that is the problem of africa. Islam and christianity have brought a lot of division in our continent. Our fore fathers were religious but they were also able to achieve a certain level of development. The egytians who built the first university in the world were deeply religious folks. In those days religion and education went hand in hand. It taught us how to use and manipulate our environments. Our fathers through local herbs were better doctors. The bronze smiths foiund in eastern nigeria were of superior quality than that of the whites. China and other asian countries have been able to develop because the embraced their religion and culture even after they were colonised. Its a pity that we have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked. Anyting africa we label it as backward and evil. Some pple even dump their native identity and embrace wetern ones. Religion is the opium of the masses and God is society deified.s who built the first university in the world were deeply religious folks. In those days religion and education went hand in hand. It taught us how to use and manipulate our environments. Our fathers through local herbs were better doctors. The bronze smiths foiund in eastern nigeria were of superior quality than that of the whites. China and other asian countries have been able to develop because the embraced their religion and culture even after they were colonised. Its a pity that we have allowed ourselves to be hoodwinked. Anyting africa we label it as backward and evil. Some pple even dump their native identity and embrace wetern ones. Religion is the opium of the masses and God is society deified.