PAGAN 9JA:

prove me wrong.

No man who has made up his mind about his own self-conferred status can ever be proven right or wrong. Even when others believe him to be right or wrong, until he decides to listen to them, they believe in vain.

mazee:

Every day people are straying and staying away from the church and going back to God

Well said!

Salvation is a journey and not a destination.

No one completes a journey at the onset.

The experience of the journey in itself, is the most critical thing.

This, according to Pullman in the book mentioned, is meant to be Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane. Very blasphemous and ridiculous in my honest opinion. It makes Jesus talk like an atheist. In this light, it will indeed be a pity if anyone is gullible enough to absorb the information as true.

http://www.freebooks4u.net/fantasticfiction/2010/174/6662.html

Pullman:
Jesus went across the valley to a garden on the slopes of the Mount of Olives.

'Wait here,' he said. 'Keep watch. Let me know if anyone comes.'

They sat down under an olive tree and wrapped their cloaks around them, because the night was cold. Jesus went apart a little way and knelt down.

'You're not listening,' he whispered. 'I've been speaking to you all my life and all I've heard back is silence. Where are you? Are you out there among the stars? Is that it? Busy making another world, perhaps, because you're sick of this one? You've gone away, haven't you, you've abandoned us.

'You're making a liar out of me, you realise that. I don't want to tell lies. I try to tell the truth. But I tell them you're a loving father watching over them all, and you're not; you're blind as well as deaf, as far as I can tell. You can't see, or you just don't want to look? Which is it?

'No answer. Not interested.

'If you were listening, you'd know what I meant by truth. I'm not one of these logic-choppers, these fastidious philosophers, with their scented Greek rubbish about a pure world of spiritual forms where everything is perfect, and which is the only place where the real truth is, unlike this filthy material world which is corrupt and gross and full of untruth and imperfection, Have you heard them? Stupid question. You're not interested in slander either.

'And slander's what it is; you made this world, and it's lovely, every inch of it. When I think of the things I've loved I find myself choking with happiness, or maybe sorrow, I don't know; and every one of them has been something in this world that you made. If anyone can smell frying fish on an evening by the lake, or feel a cool breeze on a hot day, or see a little animal trying to run around and tumbling over and getting up again, or kiss a pair of soft and willing lips, if anyone can feel those things and still maintain they're nothing but crude imperfect copies of something much better in another world, they are slandering you, Lord, as surely as words mean anything at all. But then they don't think words do mean anything; they're just tokens to play sophisticated games with. Truth is this, and truth is that, and what is truth anyway, and on and on they go, these bloodless phantoms.

'The psalm says, "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God." Well, I understand that fool. You treated him as you're treating me, didn't you? If that makes me a fool, I'm one with all the fools you made. I love that fool, even if you don't. The poor sod whispered to you night after night, and heard nothing in response. Even Job, for all the trouble he had, got an answer from you. But the fool and I might as well be talking into an empty pot, except that even an empty pot makes a sound like the wind, if you hold it over your ear. That's an answer of sorts.

'Is that what you're saying to me? That when I hear the wind, I hear your voice? When I look at the stars I see your writing, or in the bark of a tree, or the ripples on the sand at the edge of the water? Lovely things, yes, all of them, no doubt about that, but why did you make them so hard to read? Who can translate them for us? You conceal yourself in enigmas and riddles. Can I believe that the Lord God would behave like one of those philosophers and say things in order to baffle and confuse? No, I can't believe it. Why do you treat your people like this? The God who made water to be clear and sweet and fresh wouldn't fill it with mud before giving it to his children to drink. So, what's the answer? These things are full of your words, and we just have to persevere till we can read them? Or they're blank and meaningless? Which is it?

'No answer, naturally. Listen to that silence. Not a breath of wind; the little insects scratching away in the grasses; Peter snoring over there under the olives; a dog barking on some farm out behind me in the hills; an owl down in the valley; and the infinite silence under it all. You're not in the sounds, are you. There might be some help in that. I love those little insects. That's a good dog out there; he's trustworthy; he'd die to look after the farm. The owl is beautiful and cares for her young. Even Peter's full of kindness, for all the noise and the bluster. If I thought you were in those sounds, I could love you with all my heart, even if those were the only sounds you made. But you're in the silence. You say nothing.

'God, is there any difference between saying that and saying you're not there at all? I can imagine some philosophical smartarse of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes: "God's great absence is, of course, the very sign of his presence", or some such drivel. The people will hear his words, and think how clever he is to say such things, and they'll try and believe it; and they'll go home puzzled and hungry, because it makes no sense at all. That priest is worse than the fool in the psalm, who at least is an honest man. When the fool prays to you and gets no answer, he decides that God's great absence means he's not bloody well there.
. . .

etc etc

mazee:

[center]May you live in interesting times[/center]

No problems, mazee.

[center]May you come to the attention of powerful people.
May you find what you are looking for.[/center]

Thanks mazee. I appreciate your submissions; and maybe - at least in the places you hereby disagree - maybe mine are wrong.

However, I said nothing is ever dormant or latent with God (even Eden's events) because I once saw the following verse in the Bible

Isaiah 46:10 (NLT)
Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish.

Hmm. Jesus? Christ? Those were the questions. Who. What.

Who, What = The Messiah, The Anointed One

By the way, I followed the link to Pullman's book and read more than half (10 chapters out of 15) and yet I don't think it can be convincing to any honest reader as fact rather than mere fiction; considering historical (non-Biblical) evidence. I think it's a load of hogwash.

Remain blessed.

@mazee

Thanks for the clarification sir.

@femmy2010

Hello there. At the time in which the law applied, people married as many wives as they wanted so having a wife already is no issue.

God made Moses pass it into law because of the people's wickedness. A man dies, and his relatives would wickedly leave the widow to fend for herself, helpless. So God said the brother should take her in, and also give her children. If he takes her in and refuses to impregnate her, like Onan did, he is trying to be smart by sleeping with the woman (enjoying her) but leaving her without an inheritance in case he dies. That is also wicked.

In today's world, we have legal systems that can cater for these kinds of problems; a man can write a will to help his wife in case he dies.

Have a great weekend.

mazee:

The Kingdom is getting repopulated and the gates of hell are increasingly buckling

Alright that's great.

mazee:

"Jesus officially became Christ at the beginning of His ministry when The Father anointed Him to work"

OK. So are you saying Christ was latent or embryonic in Jesus?

Are you also saying Christ was dormant, was inactive in Jesus until the baptism?

Or are you saying Christ was absent or nonexistent in Jesus before baptism?

If you believe God sent Jesus, then I likewise believe that with God nothing is ever latent, dormant or embryonic. Nothing is perchance, all is planned ahead of time; even if titles like "Christ" are not ascribed on time - they were always there.

mazee:

What is Jesus?

'Jesus' is not translated or transliterated from / into 'The Christ' in any language, but they are one and the same person.

In better words than I can muster:

The word Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek Iesous, which in turn is the transliteration of the Hebrew Jeshua, or Joshua, or again Jehoshua, meaning "Jehovah is salvation." Though the name in one form or another occurs frequently in the Old Testament, it was not borne by a person of prominence between the time of Josue, the son of Nun and Josue, the high priest in the days of Zorobabel. It was also the name of the author of the "apocryphal" book of Ecclesiaticus, of one of Christ's ancestors mentioned in the genealogy, found in the Third Gospel (Luke 3:29), and one of the St. Paul's companions (Colossians 4:11). During the Hellenizing period, Jason, a purely Greek analogon of Jesus, appears to have been adopted by many (1 Maccabees 8:17; 12:16; 14:22; 2 Maccabees 1:7; 2:24; 4:7-26; 5:5-10; Acts 17:5-9; Romans 16:21). The Greek name is connected with verb iasthai, to heal; it is therefore, not surprising that some of the Greek Fathers allied the word Jesus with same root (Eusebius, "Dem. Ev.", IV; cf. Acts 9:34; 10:38). Though about the time of Christ the name Jesus appears to have been fairly common (Josephus, "Ant.", XV, ix, 2; XVII, xiii, 1; XX, ix, 1; "Bel. Jud.", III, ix, 7; IV, iii, 9; VI, v, 5; "Vit.", 22) it was [b]imposed [/b]on our Lord by God's express order (Luke 1:31; Matthew 1:21), to foreshow that the Child was destined to "save his people from their sins." Philo ("De Mutt. Nom.", 21) is therefore, right when he explains Iesous [/i]as meaning [i]soteria kyrion; and Eusebius (Dem., Ev., IV, ad fin.; P.G., XXII, 333) [/i]gives the meaning [i]Theou soterion; while St. Cyril of Jerusalem interprets the word as equivalent to soter (Catechetical Lectures X.13). This last writer, however, appears to agree with Clement of Alexandria in considering the word Iesous [/i]as of Greek origin ([i]The Pedagogue III.12); St. Chrysostom emphasizes again the Hebrew derivation of the word and its meaning soter (Homily 2 on Matthew, No. 2), thus agreeing with the exegesis of the angel speaking to St. Joseph (Matthew 1:21).

mazee:

Greek:Christ and Hebrew:Messiah

Who is Christ? Christ is "the anointed one" - the fulfilment of the promise, proof to the promised Jews that God does not forget his promises

OK. Then what is the anointing? What is the "the anointed one" then? What is Christ?

Again, in better words than I can use:

The word Christ, Christos, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew Messias, means "anointed." According to the Old Law, priests (Exodus 29:29; Leviticus 4:3), kings (1 Samuel 10:1; 24:7), and prophets (Isaiah 61:1) were supposed to be anointed for their respective offices; now, the Christ, or the Messias, combined this threefold dignity in His Person. It is not surprising, therefore, that for centuries the Jews had referred to their expected Deliverer as "the Anointed"; perhaps this designation alludes to Isaias 61:1, and[i] Daniel 9:24-26[/i], or even to Psalms 2:2; 19:7; 44:8. Thus the term Christ or Messias was a title rather than a proper name: "Non proprium nomen est, sed nuncupatio potestatis et regni", says Lactantius (Divine Institutes IV.7). The Evangelists recognize the same truth; excepting Matthew 1:1, 1:18; Mark 1:1; John 1:17; 17:3; 9:22; Mark 9:40; Luke 2:11; 22:2, the word Christ is always preceded by the article.

Only after the Resurrection did the title gradually pass into a proper name, and the expression Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus became only one designation. But at this stage the Greeks and Romans understood little or nothing about the import of the word anointed; to them it did not convey any sacred conception. Hence they substituted Chrestus, or "excellent", for Christus [/i]or "[i]anointed", and thus Chrestians [/i]instead of "[i]Christians." There may be an allusion to this practice in 1 Peter 2:3; hoti chrestos ho kyrios, which is rendered "that the Lord is sweet." Justin Martyr (First Apology 4), Clement of Alexandria (Stromata II.4.18), Tertullian (To the Nations II), and Lactantius (Divine Institutes IV.7), as well as St. Jerome (In Gal., V, 22), are acquainted with the pagan substitution of Chrestes [/i]for [i]Christus, and are careful to explain the new term in a favourable sense. The pagans made little or no effort to learn anything accurate about Christ [/i]and the [i]Christians; Suetonius, for instance, ascribes the expulsion of the Jews from Rome under Claudius to the constant instigation of sedition by Chrestus, whom he conceives as acting in Rome the part of a leader of insurgents.

The use of the definite article before the word Christ [/i]and its gradual development into a proper name show the [i]Christians [/i]identified the bearer with the [i]promised Messias of the Jews. He combined in His person the offices of prophet (John 6:14; Matthew 13:57; Luke 13:33; 24:19) of king (Luke 23:2; Acts 17:7; 1 Corinthians 15:24; Apocalypse 15:3), and of priest (Hebrews 2:17; etc.); he fulfilled all the Messianic predictions in a fuller and a higher sense than had been given them by the teachers of the Synagogue.

The Christ.

mazee:

[center]". . . proof to the promised Jews that God does not forget his promises . . ."
Promised the Jews?
Note: Matthew 15:24 I have only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel
not house of Judah[/center]

Hair-splitting aside, I meant God's promise to Jews (descendants of Abraham) and not to Jews (Judah and the post-remnants of Israel after the Bablyonian captivity).

---

This pretty much sums up the case:

Acts 10:38
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

Anointed = Christ
Jesus of Nazareth = Jesus

mazee:

[img]http://bks0.books.google.com/books?id=7FUtpV81w_gC&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=1[/img]
[center]We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything - Thomas A. Edison [/center]

Philip Pullman, like all men, is entitled to his opinion and it cannot be taken away from him until he releases it. As it is said, one cannot argue a man out of a position that he did not argue himself into.

Hello Mazee, how's the kingdom?

"Jesus", "saviour" was a promisory name. "For he shall save, "

"Christ", "the anointed one" is the fulfilment of this promise, proof to the promised Jews that God does not forget his promises.

"Jesus the Christ", the saviour anointed to save. When did Jesus become Christ? At the beginning of his ministry when The Father anointed Him to work.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, to bring good tidings to the poor, strengthen the weak, release the oppressed, "
I paraphrased, but that was when Jesus became Christ.

Jesus => became => Christ

Hello Femmy2010, hope you are having a lovely day.

You are referring to the Levirate marriage

Deuteronomy 25:5–10

5: If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her.

6: And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

7: But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.'

8: Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, "I do not want to take her,"

9: then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, "So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house."

10: And his name shall be called in Israel, "The house of him who had his sandal removed." (NKJV).

Hello Pastor AIO and thank you for your contribution. I totally forgot about this thread, but now I must needs continue. Please more of your comments are welcome sir.

"But if there is no other world and there is no fruit and ripening of actions well done or ill, then here and now in this life I shall be free from hostility, affliction, and anxiety, and I shall live happily."
- The Buddha (culled from The Kalama Sutra Book 3)

The concept of reincarnation seems to provide excuses for people who do not want to be responsible for their own actions; because their actions and inactions can always be blamed upon an act of retribution brought-forward from a past life.

Gautama Siddhartha Buddha here implies that if [one lives as if] there is neither a [hereafter] nor a [reincarnation due to karma] then one can be free from the troubles of Dukkha [hassles of this life] - knowing that he is fully responsible for eliminating Tanha (inordinate desires) from his present life and all the outcomes of that life will fully depend on him.

Sweetnecta:

@Dulcet17; « #10 on: Today at 05:38:50 PM »while i ignore tonye-t the joker, Allah says in Surah Hujurat verse16; Say to them [oh muhammad [as]], what! will you wish to teach your religion [which is not Islam] to Allah, who knows what are in heavens and on earth [everywhere]? Allah is aware [knows] of everything.
I do not participate in religion or religions that import[s] patron[s] along with God.

I guess that means you shouldn't really be on this thread, you know? I don't post in every thread either. . . Thanks for stopping by!

kodewrita:

Unfortunately for christians who would rather flirt with all manner of human philosophy, christ gave a take it or leave it proposition:

John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.


Denying this (stylishly or otherwise) puts you in the camp of the anti-christ.

simple.

Thanks for joining us, kodewriter. I wonder who you refer to in the above, but just to be sure, you said Jesus is the only way to the Father and I can't disagree with you. If you read the OP properly you will see that many people are not interested in this way to the Father; they have their own religious goals and they are pursuing it with all honesty and faithfulness. You as a Christian are interested in the way, and furthermore Jesus has asked you to make disciples of them, i.e. make them interested. If you do not understand their religions and what they believe, how will you make disciples of them? If you turn a blind eye to the people and you try to force them to see your opinion without understanding them, then it may be you who are denying, stylishly or otherwise, that Jesus is THE way. How did Jesus, the way, make disciples of those who were into Judaism?

Not to worry, we will soon get to the Christianity section. For now, you can regard this thread as mere education. 

[size=13pt]Keeping up with the Orishas[/size]
Devotees disagree about just how many orishas there are. One reason the orishas are hard to count is that, like Hindu divinities, they answer to different names in different places, so it is often unclear when you meet a new orisha whether she really is a new acquaintance or someone you have already met under another name. The accounting traditionally runs to either 401 or 601—with the plus-one gesturing at the fact that in Yoruba culture there is always room for one more at the table. An ancient tradition mentions a total of 3200, while some people say there is only ONE divinity, and that the orishas are all manifestations of the High God Olodumare.

There is a little confusion among Christians who are ethnically Yoruba about Olodumare and Eshu. Those two borrowed words do not represent the Christian God and the devil, as we are about to see. Conflating those entities across the two religions will simply cause discombobulated mix-ups.

OLODUMARE (a.k.a OLORUN)
This is the supreme being who rules the cosmos from on high. Just like the God of Deism, Olodumare is remote, distant and difficult - almost impossible - to approach. But unlike the Deist's God Olodumare did not create the world - he delegated that small task to other gods. Practitioners do not worship Olodumare directly but sometimes they send prayers in his direction when they feel like it. He has NO temples, NO priests, NO liturgy. He does not possess devotees during festivals. Although he approves all sacrifices by veto power, nobody sacrifices to him directly. Just like the Hindu creator god Brahma, Olodumare is RESPECTED more than he is revered. For day to day concerns, devotees bypass him and approach lesser entities.

Are the Orishas emanations of Olodumare or is he a combination/abstraction of them? Yoruba worshippers are divided on this, and yet others say Olodumare stands, separate from the Orishas. Then I wonder, do the Orishas actually get the job done when answering prayers, or are they simply intercessors powered by Olodumare who does everything in the background and wants no glory for it? Whatever it is, Olodumare is the chief source of Ashe - the power that is.

ESHU (a.k.a Elegbara, Legba or Elegba)
Eshu and Orunmila are the most important orishas because they connect Orun (heaven) and Aiye (earth). Orunmila delivers messages from above to humans while Eshu delivers (or more often, refuses to deliver) sacrifices and petitions from below to orishas and other spiritual beings. Without Eshu, interactions between Aiye and Orun will stop and chaos will ensue. There is no priesthood devoted directly to Eshu but images of Eshu are in almost every devotee's home; and all shrines make a small place for him in the corner. This is because if you don't bribe him a bit (his favorites are tobacco and palm oil) at the beginning of a sacrifice, he won't have the energy or desire to deliver your message. So he's called Elegbara which means "controller of the power" (with respect to the recipient - a human).

Just like Hinduism's Ganesha, Eshu is associated with crossroads (symbolic meeting place of the natural and supernatural) because he has the freewill to take any route in any situation whether it is less or more travelled. Eshu likes to clear the way for those he likes and puts up roadblocks for those who neglect him. He inserts uncertainty into a world governed by fate and sits back and laughs at the chaos. An ambiguous trickster, Eshu is a policeman and a troublemaker. He walks the nonexistent line between the Orishas (benevolent) and the Ajogun (the malevolent spirits). As an Ifa verse says, "Death, Disease, Loss, Paralysis, Big Trouble, Curse, Imprisonment, Affliction. They are all errand boys of Esu."

A popular story about Eshu tells how he wore a very trendy cap (impossible not to notice) colored red and black (his favourite colors) on each respective side, and walked slowly down the street. People on one side admired his fashionable red cap, and the other side people argued that it was a fine black cap. A fight ensued (some say it was bloody) and Eshu smiled wryly as he watched from a distance, the maker of mischief and disturber of peace.

Every Orisha except Olodumare is associated with something in vogue. For Eshu, it is travel and transportation, computers and the internet, in fact whatever controls or involves rapid and decisive change. Eshu's provocations jerk people out of drift and force them to make a decision. If a Yoruba worshipper's hard drive crashes, he knows Eshu seeks attention. He helps the Yoruba worshipper find which way their destiny is calling them and gives them the courage to move forward in that direction. But of course if they neglect him, he makes mischief out of their experiences.

A popular song by King Sunny Ade goes "Esu biri biri e wo mi o, iwaju loloko yi wa mi lo, eyin ko loloko yi wa mi lo, mo ti mo, mo ti mo ye o, mo ti mo, "

An ethnic Yoruba person should please translate that to English!

More on other Orishas later on. . .

@Tonye-T:
How are you? Thanks for joining us! I look forward to more of your contributions when we get to Christianity.

Pukkah: Would destroying their age-old items make them convert to your religion?

@Pukkah:
Thanks for the above comment. You spoke my mind.

@Sweetnecta:
So we meet again, sir! Please respect the fact that this thread is about EIGHT different religions, so please do not derail it with references to Islam in a manner that demeans any of the other religions.

Does this mean there are no Yoruba worshippers on Nairaland? Apparently, no other contributions yet.

Okay now let's look at the Orishas and how they relate to the [b]problem [/b]and the [b]solution [/b]man seeks when he follows this religion.

Taking a break. More on Orishas later and then it's a wrap for this religion. More contributions are welcome please!

[size=13pt]Yoruba Traditional Religion[/size]

Summary: This religion is the "way of connection". The goal is to find and follow your own purpose, and you must not hinder others from pursuing theirs. It varies slightly from traditional West African practices to the contemporary Yoruba-derived adaptations of religions: Candomble in Brazil and Santeria in Cuba. However varying, their beliefs and practices are far more closely connected than Mormons, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics can be related.

Together these Yoruba practitioners share the view that the human problem is disconnection and that the solution to this problem is to reconnect ourselves to our destinies, to one another, and to sacred power. This can be accomplished through the techniques of divination, sacrifice, and spirit/body possession, which in combination allow us to truly flourish as individuals and societies.

Problem:
Each of us has a destiny we have somehow forgotten. Before we are reborn (the Yoruba affirm reincarnation), one of our souls (we have two or more, depending on who is counting) appears before the High God Olodumare to receive new breath. Olodumare then allows us to choose our own destiny, which includes the day we will return to heaven, our personality, our occupation, and our own unique measure of good and bad luck. When we are born, we forget, however. So we wander through life veiled from our true purposes, sidetracked by pursuits in love and work, foisted on us by parents, friends, coworkers, and spouses.

Solution
The solution is to remember—to recover our destiny so we can do what we were created to do for ourselves, our families, and the world. One of our souls (our Ori - more on that later) knows the destiny but is not permitted to reveal it all at once. We must remember. We are not alone, though. We have a lot of help from many superhuman beings, known as orishas (orixas in Brazil, orichas in Cuba), able and willing to help us live in harmony with our destiny.

Techniques
There are many techniques of divination to obtain the wisdom of the Orishas, and specially trained priests and diviners [babalawos (if male) and iyalawos (if female), either means "custodian of secrets"] who through Ifa (a most venerable divination technique) help us recover destiny, protect it from harm via sacrifices and correspondingly fulfill it through physical action in the world.

Not to say they dispense any such secret wisdom out of thin air, but they know how to cast the 16 palm nuts or the 8-half-seed shells divining chain when consulting with a client. This random casting process produces 256 (16 x 16) possible signatures each called odu and they have memorized at least 1024 Ifa verses (4 for each signature) and they chant the poems associated with the odu when it is cast. Embedded in each poem is the required technique in each case. The Ifa diviner is a mediator, not an oracle.

Movies may have confused us a bit, though. Gender aside, permit me to use the male gender for the babalawo and the female for the client. Akin to what you may have seen in Nigerian movies, the client does not tell the babalawo why she has come - the problem presented is a mystery to the diviner. Contrary to what you may have seen in Nigerian movies, the babalawo simply recites at least four poems per odu and the client decides which of the recited poetry is appropriate for her conflict, then the babalawo tells the client stories about that verse she selected. This is in line with the PROBLEM and SOLUTION as described above. The babalawo is no superstar. He is only helping the client remember (with her own input of course) what she used to know before birth but has forgotten.

Important to these techniques is the structure of the human being and the animating powers. Ara [/b]is the physical body. Each human has at least two souls: one called [b]Emi (related to breath) and another called Ori (related to destiny). Ori [/b]literally means head but here it refers to the spiritual center that chooses destiny just before we are born and then forget. Then there is the sacred animating power [b]Ashe (ache in Cuba and axe in Brazil), which animates both the Ori and the Orishas. It is potent in this channeling that happens between us and the Orishas. Ashe also channels between our Emi and our Ori i.e. the human-inclined part that forgets and the divine-inclined part that remembers.

At the start of a divination, the babalawo touches the palm nuts to his client's ori/head (representing her ori) and says "You KNOW the Mystery" then touches the palm nuts to the divining tray (bearing the image of Eshu, the Orisha messenger and says to Orunmila a.k.a Ifa (orisha of wisdom) "You KNOW the Mystery" and finishes by adding "I, myself, I know NOTHING". Thus he sets up a connection between the god within the client (Ori), through the Orisha messenger Eshu to all the Orishas and then the Orishas will return replies through Orunmila/Ifa which will be carried out by the client feeding the Orishas with sacrifices. Ifa divination works not because the babalawo is superhuman but because the client has a god within herself. A Yoruba proverb says "The head [ori] is the greatest Orisa"

Of all sacred powers there are malevolent spirits called ajogun [/b]who can make life a living hell if you cross them, ancestor spirits called [b]egungun [/b]and finally the most powerful spirits called [b]orisha who come in 3 overlapping types from plainly divine to basically superhuman (some combine classes e.g. Shango, god of thunder and lightning, is also a former king of the Oyo Yoruba kingdom).

The Yorubas approach the divine largely through legends / stories. These legends are as important to them, as the Koran is to the Muslim and the life of Jesus is to the Christian. In Yoruba religion the variance between humanity and divinity, sacred and profane, supernatural and everyday is a very thin line. Human beings carry the awesome ashe power inside them and the Orishas have the most flimsy human emotions and most of them live in the earth (notable exceptions are Shango and Olodumare). Whereas Greek gods and goddesses go scotfree when they do wrong, Orishas pay for their misdeeds. With one foot in the natural realm and one foot in the supernatural, both sides of humans and deities speak. Both sides listen. Without orishas to empower them, humans will die. Without humans to consult them and feed them sacrifices, Orishas would get irrelevant and die, respectively. As the Yorubas say "If humanity were not, the gods would not be".

These Orishas thus seem to be "one of us" rather than "sacred or set apart" and have a whole range of vices and virtues. [i]Like the Hindu gods, they do not present themselves as either wholly good or wholly evil. [/i]They can be generous and petty, merciful and vengeful. They can harm as well as heal. And so they challenge us not to eradicate evil but to balance it with good, and not only “out there” in the world but also inside ourselves (where good and evil coexist). This complexity of course, troubles Christians, Muslims and other religions who recognize evil and sin as problems.

Christian believers often scurry to justify the biblical God’s actions (or inactions) when he supposedly does or permits "evil" things, which for an omnipotent being is almost the same. In Yoruba religion no such theological gymnastics are necessary because their deities fail morally and they learn from them like they learn from the life of their next door neighbour who, for example, got into trouble with the police.

Orishas can be classified into male and female, sky and earth, hot and cool, forest and town. But Yoruba practitioners, in keeping with their strong preference for action over belief, do not typically worry themselves about such things. Neither do they fret about the afterlife. What really matters is how to get the orishas to intervene on your behalf in mundane matters of love, luck, and work. In order to do that, you need to get to know them—what they eat, what they wear, and how they sing and dance.

Pastor AIO:

Why do I get this sense that some people will be expecting me to jump in here?

Hi Pastor AIO. If you have something to share, please don't hold back sir.

For most of world history, human beings have seen religious rivals as inferior to themselves—practitioners of empty rituals, perpetrators of bogus miracles, purveyors of fanciful myths. In some cases religious differences move adherents to fight and to kill.

But Hindu teacher Swami Sivananda writes, “The fundamentals or essentials of all religions are the same. There is difference only in the non-essentials.”

Is this true? Does pretending that the world’s religions are the same make our world safer? We set out to see for ourselves, because religion matters. It's not merely a private affair. It at least matters socially, economically, politically, and militarily.

German philologist and comparative religionist Max Müller said “He who knows one, knows none"!

In a previous thread, I was arguing about the common essences that really matter across various religions, while insisting that they are surfaces of the same object but are not equivalent to one another. In this thread I hope to start a long and maybe slow discussion (hopefully unbiased at least from my end) to compare world religions across their differences, in no particular order:

[size=15pt]8 religions[/size]
[list]
[li]The Yoruba traditional religion[/li]
[li]Islam[/li]
[li]Christianity[/li]
[li]Judaism[/li]
[li]Confucianism[/li]
[li]Hinduism[/li]
[li]Buddhism[/li]
[li]Daoism a.k.a Taoism[/li]
[/list]

If you adhere to any of these religions, you are most welcome to join the discussion so that it does or preferably does not  get biased and we can all learn.

We will compare them across 4 crude and simplistic axes on which each of these religions rotate.
[size=15pt]4 axes[/size]
- A problem
- A solution to this problem (the religious goal)
- A technique or techniques for moving from the problem to the solution
- An exemplar or exemplars who (have) chart(ed) the path from problem to solution

e.g. Christianity: (1) Sin, (2) Salvation, (3) Faith + Good works and (4) Saints in Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy plus some Protestant people of faith.
e.g. Buddhism: (1) Suffering (2) Nirvana (3) Noble Eightfold Path (meditation, chanting etc) and (4) Arhats, Bodhisattvas or Iamas depending on the type of Buddhism

This is, once again, a crude categorization. When religions sub-divide, the solutions they offer to the problem often differ within the same religion, their preferred examples differ, etc.

[size=15pt]Something is Wrong with the World[/size]
What the world’s religions share is a starting point, not a finish line. And where they begin is with this simple observation: something is wrong with the world.

Hindus say we are living in the kali yuga, the most degenerate age in cosmic history. Buddhists say that human existence is pockmarked by suffering. Jewish, Christian, and Islamic stories tell us that this life is not Eden; Zion, heaven, and Paradise lie out ahead.

Religious folk worldwide agree that something has gone wrong. They disagree, however, when it comes to stating just what has gone wrong, and they diverge sharply when they move from diagnosing the human problem to prescribing how to solve it. If practitioners of the world’s religions are all mountain climbers, then they appear to be on very different mountains, climbing very different peaks, and using very different tools and techniques in their ascents.

Lastly, before we start to discuss the Yoruba traditional religion; bear in mind that many of us have been confused by religious terms and it will help this thread if we put such confusion aside, at least temporarily for the sake of thread-sanity  . e.g. Scripture (oral or written) is not important to all religions. The Hindu Vedas are sacred scripture (like the Christian Bible) but they don't care what is in it but rather the way it sounds and the sacred power of the sounds. Not all religions are about faith and belief, though it plays a major part for most of them. e.g. you can be a Jew and not believe in God. And there is also the tricky controversial and popular bit: "salvation".

Many Christian thinkers assume salvation is the goal of all religions and argue that only Christians can achieve this goal. This statement is confused because Confucians and Buddhists dont seek salvation since they don't believe in sin. It may seem to be an act of generosity to state that Confucians and Buddhists and Muslims and Jews can also be saved, but this is a confused statement, theoretically speaking. Salvation is a unique Christian goal, so it is like saying "What is the best kind of human food? Rice, Sand, Grass, Wood or Stone?" In such a question, we have privileged Rice from the start! To criticize Stone because it cannot fill your belly is rather awkward. Salvation is the monopoly of Christianity; and other religions have their own goals too in their interaction with their Deity(es) singular or plural, or in their religious maturation if there is no Deity involved.

Muhammad (SAW) once said, “Asking good questions is half of learning”. The real big question is: What religious goal should you be pursuing? Trudging toward the end zone of salvation, or trying to reach the finish line of social harmony? Should your goal be reincarnation? Or an escape from the vicious cycle of life, death, and rebirth? And then that is your "salvation", your objective, the reason you are here.

Enough appetizer  .
Someone should help please help kick off a discussion on the Yoruba traditional religion by introducing us to the fundamental beliefs (if any), the practices and then outlining the 4 axes above (if present).

Generalizing about the overall effects of religion is a hazard of its own. Many, perhaps most, of the world’s greatest paintings, novels, sculptures, buildings, and musical compositions are also religiously inspired.

Religion is one of the greatest forces for evil in world history. Yet religion is also one of the greatest forces for good. Religions have put God’s stamp of approval on all sorts of demonic schemes, but religions also possess the power to say no to evil and banality.

Many, perhaps most, of the world’s greatest paintings, novels, sculptures, buildings, and musical compositions are also religiously inspired. Without religion, there would be no Alhambra or Angkor Wat, no reggae or Gregorian chant, no Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci or Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot, no Shusaku Endo’s Silence or Elie Wiesel’s Night.

- Stephen Prothero, New York Bestselling author of "Religious Literacy"

Morning, Vescucci

They are thoughts of a religious teacher called Osho. I think you will like his writings. I dont believe all of it, but he has a lot of useful content when I do comparative religious studies.

I hear he has a blog, you can just google Osho.

Good topic, Sagamite!

Both are great candidates and Ribadu is a good idea but I dont think its time for him as president.

There is a lot of cleaning up to do, and while Buhari can do this himself, Ribadu can't. He will be used by Tinubu to witch-hunt his enemies and protect himself and allies. Just like baba iyabo did.

Buhari, I believe, will fill his cabinet on merit. We may like to remember Tunde Idiagbon.

What Nigeria needs now is a president who will
select the right people for the right posts, empower them to work, and will not hinder their work because they have some skeletons.

Right now we dont need a genius so to speak, we need a grader, a leveller. GEJ is business as usual. We need someone to birth the next level of which Ribadu is part.

I think if Buhari wins, he should place Ribadu on a pedestal where he can do useful work. This way it will be possible for Ribadu to contest for presidency on a (hopefully) proven non-corrupt platform.

This is why I will vote for BB.

Spot on, Vescucci. Yes, the point was at first lost on me. . . Thanks for clarifying.

Hello Vescucci

I believe that is not so. God's truth is all around us and inside our hearts if we do not deceive ourselves, even though our understandings of natures might differ.

God has succinctly made himself known to us already, but some of us need constant reminders in the form of tangible human interactions.

Joagbaje:

We judge doctrine and not a person. James wasn't perfect. He made obvious doctrinal errors which paul corrected.  That doesn't mean we looked own on them. 
James was just a man like anyone else. I think it is idolatry to feel we are lesser than them . It simple biblical discussion we are having. and it's scriptural to judge doctrine and not a person. 

Since you are judging doctrines and not people, what about this one? Please answer honestly, what is the Biblical basis for this below?

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-630393.0.html#msg7975502

Theotempo: Christianity without the annointing is religion! Pst Chris!

vescucci:

Well, the bible certainly contains lies. Some out of good intentions, some outta disregard and some outta greed.

Hello Sir Vescucci. Can you please enlighten me on the above?

Joagbaje:

God never said anyone should fight for him. He commanded we should preach the gospel. A man who insults God lack truth. And it's the gospel that we need to preach to make known his knowledge . God us not glorified in railing insults on others for him. The gospel is communicated by love Not JIHAD.

But if someone defends his pastor. It's a natural loyalty thing. If someone insult God ,you may not respond to his folly. But if he insults your mother, there may be a reaction. It's an issue of loyalty.I'm not justifying it. But it's not idolatry . The disciples carried sword to fight for Jesus. It's a natural fleshly response .Especially when you know the accusations are unfounded.

Sorry I don't relate with this. I see insults on myself, a family member, friend, boss or God the same way; most often not worthy of a response.

Joagbaje it is wrong to even insult anyone no matter if they are a man of God or not. What I'm saying is that some people hold God's own "Men of God" that they can see in higher esteem than the God they cannot see.

Exodus 32:1-3 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him."

Exo 24:17  And the sight of the glory of the LORD was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

Exo 34:35  And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone: and Moses put the vail upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

2Co 3:15  Yes, down to this [very] day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies upon their minds and hearts.
2Co 3:16  But whenever a person turns [in repentance] to the Lord, the veil is stripped off and taken away.

musKeeto:

If we are to be honest, we would realise that the moment anyone says something wrong about E.A Adeboye or Oyedepo, there is a backlash against the 'pagan' especially on social networking sites.

Joagbaje:

In all these, I would still want to know ,what makes any o these points a matter of Idolatory. Let's define idolatry from the word and analyse it properly . Not just general statement. Is it idolatry to listen or submit to a man of God? . Is it idolatry to be corrected, rebuked by a man of God. Is it idolatry to recieve instruction by a man of God? . It is dsngerous to make general statements without definite clarity .

Good morning to you, Joagbaje

For example it is idolatry if one keeps quiet at something offensive about their God but immediately their pastor is slandered, they start insulting the offender.

Dear Sweetnecta,

Inasmuch as our names have the same meaning, our understanding and leanings differ greatly. But thanks for your posts above!

P.S. This thread is geared to help each of us evaluate our personal religion(s), no matter what the religion is. Please note it is not a witch-hunting manoeuvre set upon any particular religion.