₦airaland Forum

KLand:
You are entitled to your own opinion, but don't take it beyond bounds. As Christians we don't partake in cultural practices that are fetish in nature. We do only things that don't contradict our faith and belief. And we owe no one any apologies for that.

It's nt jst my opinion..I hardly care about christianity.
the problem here is discouraging other sons of the land from their ancestral heritage.
This christianity does, and it's nt Christians(or more appropiate, Europeans) that would describe fetish to us.
I see more fetish in European culture than African culture, we are more spiritual and nature-minded than them, as such we understand The creator even better, and use much less "idol" references...jst take a look at Catholism as a perfect example...even the common priest is practically worshipped

jst as u feel u owe ur false doctrines of a belief, we also owe our ancestors, ourselves and our coming generation

macof:
It's nt jst my opinion..I hardly care about christianity.
the problem here is discouraging other sons of the land from their ancestral heritage.
This christianity does, and it's nt Christians(or more appropiate, Europeans) that would describe fetish to us.
I see more fetish in European culture than African culture, we are more spiritual and nature-minded than them, as such we understand The creator even better, and use much less "idol" references...jst take a look at Catholism as a perfect example...even the common priest is practically worshipped

jst as u feel u owe ur false doctrines of a belief, we also owe our ancestors, ourselves and our coming generation

I am aware that there are fetish practices everywhere in the world. But that doesn't make them right. As an African born one has been involved in such before .....but not anymore........

I wasn't really asking people not to practice their culture. I said Christians should not be involved in the ones that contradict their faith.

I do not preach religion which is man's way of trying to reach God. But rather I refer to Christianity which is God's way of reaching man, through Jesus Christ.

You said you hardly care about Christianity, but I am sure you would if you really understood it as a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the only way to God. I know that sounds offensive to some people, but that's the truth as revealed in the BIble.

As for your reference to Catholics, well, I have my reservations too. But it is better to let them speak for themselves.

You call my believe false. Well, once again that's your opinion. So no offence.

PAGAN9JA:
Mumu hypocrite! Y do u worship jesus idols then?

t

I worship Jesus Christ, a living person. There is no such thing as Jesus idol. If you see one, ask the creators of such, because it must have come from their imaginations. What you refered to is not a part of true christian worship that Jesus Christ brought to mankind.

macof:
then a Christian is another term for bastard, if Christians shouldn't take part in their cultural practices

I am not sure you know what you talking about. So I reserve my further comments.

PAGAN9JA:
[size=28pt]IDOLATRY?

WHAT RUBBISH!

IT IS THE GODS (Spiritual Forces) that are worshiped, not the image itself which just serves the function of a ritual object , just like a prayer mat or a holy-water sprinkler.

Anyways, as a free-born man from the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I DO NOT NEED ANY OYINBO/ARAB SLAVES TO TELL ME HOW I MUST CONDUCT WORSHIP OF MY GODS OR PRACTICE MY CULTURE IN MY OWN LAND!

F.VCK CHRISTIANITY.

F.VCK ISLAM.

F.VCK THOSE DEAD JEW WORSHIPERS AND PEDO.PHILE FOLLOWERS.

I would rather worship idols than commit sinful acts in Gods name lyk these foreign slaves..

AMEN.[/size]

My main man ! just had a heated one with the fam as usual. I'm forced to believe that I'm Jewish

KLand:
I am aware that there are fetish practices everywhere in the world. But that doesn't make them right. As an African born one has been involved in such before .....but not anymore........

I wasn't really asking people not to practice their culture. I said Christians should not be involved in the ones that contradict their faith.

I do not preach religion which is man's way of trying to reach God. But rather I refer to Christianity which is God's way of reaching man, through Jesus Christ.

You said you hardly care about Christianity, but I am sure you would if you really understood it as a relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the only way to God. I know that sounds offensive to some people, but that's the truth as revealed in the BIble.

As for your reference to Catholics, well, I have my reservations too. But it is better to let them speak for themselves.

You call my believe false. Well, once again that's your opinion. So no offence.

you need education cus am sure you don't know the meaning of "fetish"
Chk d dictionary and you will find out that Christianity is very much fetish

You said Christians shouldn't practice their culture...there's no two ways to what you are saying

Speaking nonsense...christianity is a religion, as such you are preaching ur Master's(European) doctrines

Jesus is dead and useless, I know this. As an ex-Christian I know all there is about the religion and the mind of a typical Christian as I was once one

Of course your beliefs are false, there's more than enough points to buttress this

datalossvictim1:
My main man ! just had a heated one with the fam as usual. I'm forced to believe that I'm Jewish

Kai! wats your age son?

macof:
you need education cus am sure you don't know the meaning of "fetish"
Chk d dictionary and you will find out that Christianity is very much fetish

You said Christians shouldn't practice their culture...there's no two ways to what you are saying

Speaking nonsense...christianity is a religion, as such you are preaching ur Master's(European) doctrines

Jesus is dead and useless, I know this. As an ex-Christian I know all there is about the religion and the mind of a typical Christian as I was once one

Of course your beliefs are false, there's more than enough points to buttress this

.


Jesus is alive forever more. Neither your unbelief nor your skepticism can silence that fact.

You couldn't have been a Christian, as you claimed, and still talked like this. I am sure that what you had might have been a form of religion, but nothing close to what Jesus Christ truly represents. That's why you sound so so dissatisfied.

Of course if you never made Jesus your Lord and personal saviour, what you had was a dead religion, which I agree wouldn't have helped you. I think you need the living Jesus in your life. It will make a whole lot of difference.

PAGAN9JA:
Kai! wats your age son?

21 but I don't believe that though.

KLand:
.


Jesus is alive forever more. Neither your unbelief nor your skepticism can silence that fact.

You couldn't have been a Christian, as you claimed, and still talked like this. I am sure that what you had might have been a form of religion, but nothing close to what Jesus Christ truly represents. That's why you sound so so dissatisfied.

Of course if you never made Jesus your Lord and personal saviour, what you had was a dead religion, which I agree wouldn't have helped you. I think you need the living Jesus in your life. It will make a whole lot of difference.

Lol dead Jew who supposedly lived 2000yrs ago still alive
In space right?
I remember when i was so dumb to believe this...thanks to Ori I was freed from mental and intellectual slavery and dependence

You don't know me more than I know myself, so when I tell u i was a die hard lover of Jesus once you best believe but of course you could keep deceiving urself as if thousands aren't leaving christianity on a yearly basis

There's no such thing as a living Jesus, it's all up in ur dogmatic and brainwashed mind...a delusion infused on u most probably from childhood...If Jesus being alive is a fact, I believe facts are backed up with evidence...pls tender some here or forever remain silent

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery and face reality, The Europeans brought religion to ur lands and successfully caged ur mind worse than they did Africans in Americas, at least many still have their mind intact and still affiliate with their ancestral heritage

datalossvictim1:
21 but I don't believe that though.

Hmm......if u r a dependant, dont push it further until u have a job and income.

Unless u know the right way how to brainwash .

bobkezel:
If observation of cultures and traditions is idol worshiping, then christianity, islam, hinduism and all other non-indigenous religious observations are also idol worshiping. By the way who set the status quo of what idol worshiping is and isn't. It is just the white man's language of making of traditional values to be seen as inferior. So my dear, our cultures and traditions is not idol worshiping. It is who we are, our heritage, our identity, but it's a pity we are losing it too fast.

Better venerating our idols than those of other peoples

9jacrip:
I get your point, makes sense.

Africans have completely sold out that it is hard to 'borrow' like Indians and Chinese then develop.

1. The religion has created an identity problem, people dp not want to identify with 'indigenous' no one even wants to be identified with the the local black soap making, sale or use for example. Another example, If you borrow let's say, car production (not assembly) and we want to be indigenous in that in Yoruba land, iron workers are often associated with Ogun, even if they do not worship it. This is enough to make the Europeanized or Arabized kill the dream.

I think this point is less to do with religion and more due to the type of education Nigerians receive. First off almost everything is taught in English, a foreign language. Then there are all the irrevelant references to what a few white people achieved, I call it 'Mungo Park syndrome' i.e he supposedly discovered the source of the River Niger meaning our ancestors were too daft to see abi? It shows our frames of reference are always from the British point of view.

PAGAN9JA:
Hmm......if u r a dependant, dont push it further until u have a job and income.

Unless u know the right way how to brainwash .

lol thanks I won't !

2CatWoman:
I think this point is less to do with religion and more due to the type of education Nigerians receive. First off almost everything is taught in English, a foreign language. Then there are all the irrevelant references to what a few white people achieved, I call it 'Mungo Park syndrome' i.e he supposedly discovered the source of the River Niger meaning our ancestors were too daft to see abi? It shows our frames of reference are always from the British point of view.

It is religion my dear. Stop skirting the problem. Even the Indians receive education in english.

PAGAN9JA:
It is religion my dear. Stop skirting the problem. Even the Indians receive education in english.

I totally disagree. Language is a strong vehicle of culture and identity as much as religion is.

Anyway, science and education tend to turn people into atheist or agnostic if western countries like America and Europe are anything to based our analysis on. Still we must never forget to honor where we come from spiritually, of course.

ALL (yes, I said ALL), European countries use their own languages as language of instructions and everyday life. They learn English as second language (which is ***very*** important too).

All great people use their own culture, languages and religions as a foundation to their nations. From British, Swedish, French, German, Finnish, Spanish, Russian, Jewish, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysians, South Korans and countless other great nations. All technologically advanced nations. For example, Scandinavian countries are very strong in Research and technology, so are Japanese, Chinese and South Koreans of course. They all use their own languages as languages of instructions and everyday life while learning english as a second language. Their own culture and languages (and indeed religion/history/culture) are the basis of their development. Anything written in english or any languages can be easily translated, it's no biggy, nothing to fear.

I love the English language, I truly do!! It's easy to learn as a second language and already has the status of the language of business internationally and has a good position in Nigeria. It's extremely important to learn it as a second language. But the moment, African countries start to use their own languages as languages of instructions, will be the first true step toward the democratization of knowledge and indigenous development. Unesco and local research already shown increased ability (grades) in mathematics/other school subjects and children participation in class when local languages are used in pilot projects.

PAGAN9JA:
It is religion my dear. Stop skirting the problem. Even the Indians receive education in english.

Just my opinion ,dear.

2CatWoman:
I think this point is less to do with religion and more due to the type of education Nigerians receive. First off almost everything is taught in English, a foreign language. Then there are all the irrevelant references to what a few white people achieved, I call it 'Mungo Park syndrome' i.e he supposedly discovered the source of the River Niger meaning our ancestors were too daft to see abi? It shows our frames of reference are always from the British point of view.

Actually, no.
I was not arguing from the education style point of view, I was referring to how people have come to see themselves different from their own traditional invention and technology due to the identity problem religion has created.
E.G I am a Christian. As a result I cannot use/promote/produce ose dudu because it represents 'backwardness' or 'charm', I cannot use/promote/produce agunmu because it appears primitive and un-christianly.

Your argument is also a considerable fact but different from my point entirely.

https://www.reactiongifs.com/r/monday1.gif

9jacrip:
Actually, no.
I was not arguing from the education style point of view, I was referring to how people have come to see themselves different from their own traditional invention and technology due to the identity problem religion has created.
E.G I am a Christian. As a result I cannot use/promote/produce ose dudu because it represents 'backwardness' or 'charm', I cannot use/promote/produce agunmu because it appears primitive and un-christianly.

Your argument is also a considerable fact but different from my point entirely.

https://www.reactiongifs.com/r/monday1.gif

In fact, it was the strategy of the European colonialists to spiritually colonized their future subjects so they have less confidence in themselves, and weakened social structures, and become easy pray to economic, military and political colonization. The idea was always to turn African colonies into mere producers of raw materials used as input for their industrial development. That is when they didn't use Africans as cheap slave labors. Considering the lack of oil refined locally in Nigeria and the low level of various manufacturing goods produced locally, we're still stuck in the same paradigm in Nigeria and Africa. The improvements are there but marginal. Even when they transferred the political power to African stooges, or assassinated African leaders like Nkrumah and Sankara and supported sell outs Africans, it was and is still part of the plan (called neo-colonisation/imperialism).

Right from the start the strategy of the colonial imperialists was to first mentally/spiritually colonize us then colonize us politically, militarily and economically. We still haven't completely left that paradigm.

In general, our own culture, religions, languages, etc should always be the foundation on which we build our societies. It's how they did it themselves, it's what Asian people do (Japan, China, South Korea). Integrating technology and good stuff from outside under our own terms. In a similar way European integrated writing and gun powder into their own various cultures and social systems and made good use of it. Always in progression and continuity with the past.

macof:
Oh! I didn't call u a bastard..our ancestors did.
A man who lacks that Omoluabi way now

what do you mean by "our" Yours and whose ancestors?

as per omoluabi, its interesting an oponu like you is presuming to use the term.

tpia1billion:
what do you mean by "our" Yours and whose ancestors?

as per omoluabi, its interesting an oponu like you is presuming to use the term

Keep asking me...it's nt my fault u lack basic knowledge of ur ancestors

Macof I think that was more meant as whose peoples are we talking and what era? I think that's relevant to clarify in some talks, which nations we talking and where and in which time, it's not like asking that question is invalid or all dumb.

BlackLeopard:
Macof I think that was more meant as whose peoples are we talking and what era? I think that's relevant to clarify in some talks, which nations we talking and where and in which time, it's not like asking that question is invalid or all dumb.

It doesn't matter what nation, what time

Why can't people respect culture and tradition? If u hate ur culture you leave the land and denounce ur identity it's nt hard
And if it's that of other people, u let them be

macof:
It doesn't matter what nation, what time

Why can't people respect culture and tradition? If u hate ur culture you leave the land and denounce ur identity it's nt hard
And if it's that of other people, u let them be

Have you been there? It isn't that easy thing to do. Either leaving the land or denouncing an identity, leaving community. And saying, 'if you hate it just leave', that's xenophobia prime. People shouldn't have to be asked to leave *their homes* just because of their feelings / when spotting wrongs about their community / when not happy with the state of affairs.

BlackLeopard:
Have you been there? It isn't that easy thing to do. Either leaving the land or denouncing an identity, leaving community. And saying, 'if you hate it just leave', that's xenophobia prime. People shouldn't have to be asked to leave *their homes* just because of their feelings / when spotting wrongs about their community / when not happy with the state of affairs.

Wrongs? What is wrong about agemo festival? That the idiotic religionist call idolatry
what is wrong with Ida'fa that the Christians preach against every Sunday...practising our own culture is not wrong because ur silly foreign religion says so?

macof:
Wrongs? What is wrong about agemo festival? That the idiotic religionist call idolatry
what is wrong with Ida'fa that the Christians preach against every Sunday...practising our own culture is not wrong because ur silly foreign religion says so?

.

What a question? You're asking what you already know.

If they don't preach against these things, how are they gonna increase client numbers and tithes?

AreaFada2:
.

What a question? You're asking what you already know.

If they don't preach against these things, how are they gonna increase client numbers and tithes?

True this of course is the only reason...tithe and offering money that enrich the pastors

macof:
Wrongs? What is wrong about agemo festival? That the idiotic religionist call idolatry
what is wrong with Ida'fa that the Christians preach against every Sunday...practising our own culture is not wrong because ur silly foreign religion says so?

I'm not in disagreement about that - traditions are important, sense making, wonderful and to be kept.
What I'm objecting is the notion 'if you don't like dis or dat, leave' and calling that bit unnecessary

Better idolizing our own ancestors and culture than a dead jewish person on a cross.

BlackLeopard:
I'm not in disagreement about that - traditions are important, sense making, wonderful and to be kept.
What I'm objecting is the notion 'if you don't like dis or dat, leave' and calling that bit unnecessary

well it's a good advice, if you can't tolerate paganism you leave and denounce ur identity..probably move to Europe were there's no "idolatry"

THE FUTURE OF AFRICAN GODS - THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS


ACCRA - W.E.B. DU BOIS CENTER - JULY 10, 1998

by Professor Molefi Kete Asante


I am pleased that you have come to hear my lecture tonight and I want to thank the organizers of this event for their diligence and generosity. In particular I would like to publicly thank Dr. Kofi Anyidiho, and Executive Director Moore, the staff and the Board of the DuBois Center for making this occasion possible. I give praise to Nyame, Asase Yaa, and the Nananom nsamanfo for whatever clarity I am able to share with you.

I shall begin my lecture with a conclusion: Until an African leader publicly acknowledges, honors and prays to an African God, we Africans will continue to be viewed as pathetic imitators of others, never having believed in ourselves.

So powerful is the concept of religion when we discuss it in connection with civilization that to deny the validity of one's religion is to deny the validity of one's civilization. Indeed to deny one's religion as valid is to suggest that the person is a pagan, a heathen, uncivilized, and beyond the sphere of humanity. So to talk about religion is to talk about our views of ourselves, our understanding of our ancestors, and our love of our culture.
To establish my argument that we have a crisis in civilization because we have a crisis in religion I will make several points dealing with the themes of tradition, history, religion, and human action.

Traditions

There are no people without traditions and traditions are the lifeblood of a people. A people who refuse to express its love and appreciation for its ancestors will die because in traditions, if you are not expressing your own, you are participating in and expressing faith in someone else's ancestors. No person is devoid of an attachment to some cultural fountain. Whose water are we drinking?

Our African history has been a recent escapade of forgetfulness. We have often lost our memories and accepted the gods of those who enslaved and colonized us. This is something the Chinese and the Indians have fought hard to keep at bay. While we have often embraced our enemies' gods they have found those gods to be anathema to their interests. Show me the gods we Africans worship and I will show the extent of our moral and ethical decay.

Those who speak to us of Christian or Islamic morals have often been the very ones who had defiled our ancestors' memories and called out sacred rites paganism. Malcolm X once said that the world pushes the African around because we give the impression that we are chumps, not champs, but chumps, weaklings, falling over ourselves to follow other people rather than our own traditions.

The distribution of religion represents the distribution of power. African distribution is minimal and exists in a few places in the diaspora like Brazil, Haiti, Jamaica and the American South. The religion that people practice is based on the influences that have captured their imaginations. In the American South and the Caribbean and in South America one will often find the Yoruba religion. It is Africa's most powerful religious export to the Americas, but this is still a minimal influence when one considers the fact that others have imposed their religions on us and we have accepted the imposition often without a fight from our traditional leaders. Indeed our traditional religious leaders have often been hijacked by the material goods offered by the purveyors of these migrating gods.

History

The great African pharaoh, Menes, united the two lands (TAWY) bringing 42 clans or nomes under one government around 3100 B.C. By this time already Africans had formulated the first human response to the unknown. If anything we knew God before anyone else, not because we were wiser but because we were first to be civilized.


...........................................https://www.stewartsynopsis.com/images/Narmer.gif
Menes (or Narmer) First Dynastic Pharaoh of Egypt - 3100 BC


If you take any of the scientific reports we know that the first hominids were from Africa. Australopithecus afarensis is 4,200,000 years old and Australopithecus ramidus, 3,800,000. When Richard Johnason discovered Dinqnesh, later called Lucy, by the Europeans, he claimed to have found the earliest example of a hominid in Ethiopia. Until 75,000 years ago all humans were black. Did they have an appreciation for the almighty? Did they formulate a response to the unknown? Of course they did; they were human and human before anyone else.

Our ancestors brought forth the first civilizations and gave the world the oldest organized cosmological explanations. Thus, Ra as Ptah, Atum, Amen, Khepera, Khnum - the many names of the one, the Supreme, created Shu and Tefnut, air and moisture, Geb and Nut, earth and sky. Then came Ausar, Auset, Nebhet, and Set. Ausar was killed by his brother Set and Auset put him back together with the assistance of her sister, Nebhet and her son, Heru, who avenged his father by killing Set. This is the story of good over evil.

The purpose was to create Maat, balance, harmony, justice, righteousness, reciprocity, order. These are the key concepts in any ethical system and the fact that they emerged first in the Nile Valley of Africa suggests that other ideas, related to these ideas, found their way into the very practices and beliefs of our people throughout the continent. The deliberate attempt by the European to separate Africans from the classical civilizations of the Nile is one of the biggest falsifications in history. Only when we reclaim our history will we be able to see that the origins of many religious ideas are African. How is it that the parent has become the child?
Thus, not only do we have the earliest emergence of God, we have the first ethical principles, reinforced by proverbs, and refined in the oral and artistic traditions of our narratives.

The ancient name of Egypt was Kemet and it was the culmination of classical Africa's achievements in science, art, architecture, medicine, astronomy, geometry, and religion. The Greeks honored the Africans as the originators of the science and art practiced by the Greeks themselves. It would be the Europeans of the 15th through 19th centuries that would try to divorce Egypt from its African origin and deny Africa any role in civilizing the world.

The early Greek historian, Herodotus claims that nearly all of the Greek gods came from Africa. We know that the Greeks worshipped Imhotep as Aesclepius, the God of Medicine, and that the name Athens, Athena, is from Aten.

When Constantine in 325 A.D. took ideas from African spirituality and created a control mechanism at Council of Nicea he was trying to organize a system for using African spiritual ideas. The early Christian church had to deal with the fact that Christians had used many African ideas, the son of God, eternal life, and the resurrection, in their religion. The sad fact is that since we have forgotten so much we do not know that we are the originators of religion.

The abandonment of our history, indeed the abandonment of our gods, the gods of our ancestors, have brought us deep into the quagmire of misdirection, mis-orientation and self pity. When the missionaries forbade our shrines and punished us in the Americas when we called the names of our gods and sounded our mighty drums they were looking for the Pavlovian reaction they finally got in millions of Africans: African is bad, it is inferior, it is pagan, it is heathen. We often hear others cursing our ancestors in ways the Chinese, the Lebanese and the British would never allow. Why is this? Are we truly shamed by our military defeat? Can we no longer think about how right our ancestors were in exploring human nature and positing ways to combat the unknown? Cannot we create new forms out of the old mold or must we throw away the mold?

What would be anymore pagan than the wanton willful destruction of millions of Africans, Jews, Native Americans, and Chinese by Christian Europeans? How could white men pray to a god on the second floor of a slave dungeon while on the first floor they held our ancestors, yours and mine, in horrible bondage? What kind of religion denied our humanity at the same time they were ra-ping our women, brutalizing our children, and demanding our wealth and our souls?

It is true that the idea of Christian names or Muslim names promotes and advances those cultures. Why must you change your name even if you chose to buy into a foreign religion? What is wrong with your name? Any religion that asks you to do what others do not have to do is asking you to abandon your mother. The question is, why would you abandon your mother?

Religion in General

What is religion but the deification of ancestors, the making sacred of traditions within the context and history. How can we honor any god who was used against us? The only people who accept alien gods are defeated people; all others honor and accept their own name for the Almighty. We must learn to appreciate ourselves and our traditions. What is wrong with the African God?

What would we think of a Yoruba who accepted Chinese ancestors as his own? We would find it quite interesting and wonder how it came to be. But what of Africans' acceptance of others' gods? Is there no tradition with these alien gods? Of course there is tradition with these gods! To accept the Jews' god or the Arabs' god or the Hindu's god and so forth is to valorize those histories above your own. Indeed, it is to honor the names in those myths and stories higher than your own stories, it is to love the language, the places in their stories above your own. Why is Mecca, Rome, or Jerusalem more sacred than Bosumtwi? Quite simply, it is imperialism, not by force of arms, but by force of religion which sometimes comes armed.

Joel Kotkin's Tribes - a book about people ready for the 21st Century claims that only Jews, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and British are ready. These groups have some commonalities which include (1) strong sense of identity, (2) international network, and (3) a passion for technology.

He does not include any African community or ethnic group. In fact, he believes that the African people were best organized under the leadership of Marcus Garvey who believed that Africans were not only capable of achieving without the whites; Africans had to achieve without whites in order to be seen as fully participating in the drama of history. Kwame Nkrumah believed in much the same idea.

Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations claims that there are six major civilizations: Chinese, Japanese, Orthodox, Hindu, Western, Islamic. He says each one has a nation that is vanguard, deeply committed to its religion and history. Africa has no such vanguard nation and furthermore Africa has yet to emerge from under the cloaks of its interventionists. Of 53 nations only one nation is more African in religion than either Christian or Muslim. That nation is small Benin.

Benin is 87% popular traditional African Religion. But it is a small nation with limited influence in a propaganda fashion. As such we do not expect African traditional religion to play a major part in the civilization of Africa for a long time to come, but we can begin to examine the questions, to raise the issues, and to interrogate our practices.

Let me explore African Religion with you to provide some common understanding.


African Religion

In the first place it is important that we call popular traditional African Religion everywhere by a common acronym, Ptare. This means that Akan, Yoruba, Igbo, Zulu and Shona are the same religion with different branches. Just as Christians may be Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, and just as Muslims may be Mourrides, Sunni, or Shiities. There is no difference in speaking of Ptare as one religion and speaking of Christianity or Islam as one religion.

I believe that Popular Traditional African Religion everywhere (Ptare) is as old as civilization, indeed, it is much older than either Christianity or Islam. The major characteristics of Ptare are found in all of the traditions from East to West and from North to South. The fact that we have often misunderstood the legacy we have inherited is not the fault of those who left it; it is our fault for preferring the oppressors' legacy over that of our own ancestors.


The characteristics of Ptare include:

Creator God

Domicile of Gods - Presence, Shrine

Priest/Priestess of God

Devotee of God - medium (Noc??)

Herbalist - Pharmacist

Psychiatrist - mental harmonizer

Diviner - scientist, Hunter's/explorers

All ritual in Ptare seek a return to Maat.
Everything is one - we are a part of the whole and nothing is disconnected from the Almighty. That is why we recognize Mother Earth as well as Nyame.

What Europe sees and teaches as limitations in Ptare are really advantages:
No vast interpretative literary corpus to say what is and what is not - Ptare's interpretations are often dependent on a multitude of situations that demand attention.

No concentration on the material manifestations of the God's house. All temples started as shrines and from the shrine place people build other edifices. Buildings should have some historical or religious significance.


Advantages of Ptare

The ethical principles are more conducive to community, not so geared toward individualism. Some religions demonstrate their power by showing what they can build but this is only a matter of financial not moral wealth. Are you more civilized because you can build a nuclear bomb?

We must not be impressed by the things which can be created because we are human and have the same capacity and can create the same things out of our own minds. But our African gods do not advance destruction. They have never been gods of death, but of life.

The material manifestations of religion are not the wisest standard of how good God is unless your god is money. The new religions seem to bring schools and hospitals but we have always had those institutions without calling them by those names. Now it is time that the practitioners of Ptare explain the interrelationship of the traditions of ordinary life in the context of institutions. Our entire existence is religion. Our shrines are sacred places on sacred land given by the ancestors. Our health is interconnected to our spirituality.

We Africans have always believed in a supreme deity whether the name was Nyame, Oludumare, Abasi, Nkulunkulu, Woyengi, Chukwu, Mawu and Lisa. This is true although others have said we did not. They have confused a lot of us.

When the white missionaries translated the bible in our languages, they asked our ancestors for the name of the Almighty and they used the names our ancestors had always used for the Almighty and then told us that we did not have a belief in the Supreme.

But we now know that our priests were no less wise in their observations than the Greek sophists, the Hebrew prophets, the Arab ulema, and the Chinese literati.

Our ancestors believed in pluralism without hierarchy --- many expressions of God without saying mine is right, or the only one, and yours is bad, pagan, and heathen. Perhaps had we done that we would have stopped the alien religions at the shore, but we are the world's first humanists and we allowed others to come with their goods and their gods.

They came with a political ideology in the name of religion. It was imperialism. Imperialism brings destruction, obliteration. How could we fall for it for so long? The introduction of a book or a gun caused us to lose our footing, to stumble on our way, to denounce our fathers and mothers.

There are no other people on the earth who have had to denounce their ancestors in order to become better people. Is it because our ancestors are so strong that we are forced to denounce them before our conquerors? This is one thing you shall never find me doing because I know too much about my African contribution to history.


ctd...

Teach!

The term "Idol worship" is a nonsensical Abrahamic Religions concept that is meaningless outside of European and Asian philosophy. i.e the term "Idol' makes better sense in a European and Asian context as is properly reserved for Roman, Greek and partly Asian mythology.

The term "Idol" in the context of Abrahamic Religions is an immure and derogatory way of attempting to discredit all other faiths or religious concepts that arent Abrahamic.


That is to say, if you dont belong to any of the Abrahamic faith, then you automatically considerred anyone else an Idol worshiper. Which is in itself a nonsensical conclusion for anyone to make.

For instance, African divinities are never an Idol in the context Abrahamic religions seek to have you believe.

Our divinities are divine entities, and are in all reality divine representatives of the Almighty God on planet earth.