At the root of Judaism, Christianity and Islam is the worship of the Black God of antiquity. The differences that currently exist in these three religions are due to a gradual perversion of an ancient religious order that permeated the world beyond the ancient near east.
In the seminal book The Proto-Semitic Religion, Professor Werner Daum tries to reconstruct the religion of the Proto-Semites – the forbears of the Semites of today. He claims that circa 9,000 years ago an African people crossed over into Southern Arabia and formed the basis of the Proto-Semitic peoples and religions. He further makes the point that these Proto-Semites worshiped a God they called A-Lah.
This was 9,000 years ago – long before ancient Kemet, the Bible, Qur’an or any of the prophets known to us. It is clear that southern Arabia (Yemen), Ethiopia and Eritrea shared a common religion. Daum’s documents reveal that the Kingdoms of Saba (Biblical Sheba), D’mt and Aksum called their God LMQH, which past and current scholars conventionally pronounce as Al-Maqah or God of Maqah. All of this predates the Hebrew deity El. The God El is a linguistic mutation of the God A-lah or AL. This is a poignant revelation in carefully and correctly situating Allah in Africa – a God who was both worshipped by Africans on the continent and equally so by those who had migrated out.
Julian Baldick, in his book The Black God: The Afroasiatic Roots of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim Religions, makes the convincing argument that just as there exists a common Afroasiatic language group there also exists a common Afroasiatic fountain of religion. He asserts that “the God of the Bible comes out of the original Semitic Black Rain-Deity.”
With this background, Jacques Cauvin’s book The Birth of the Gods and the Origin of Agriculture becomes not only interesting but increasingly significant. Cauvin traces the origins of the neolithic agricultural revolution to the emergence of a new religion in the Levant circa 12,000 years ago. He argues that around that time a new religious order marked by a change in symbolism sparked the agricultural revolution that put an end to hunting and gathering and ushered in a sedentary way of life typical of agrarian societies.
Cauvin notices that around the same time the structures dedicated to God began to take on the shape of a square rather than a circle. These square structures became the forebears of the Ziggurats and pyramids of the ancient near east and other places. One of the oldest Ziggurats known, of Mesopotamian origin, assumes the form of a step pyramid (with seven steps). Cauvin claims that the transition from round religious buildings to square buildings represented the transformation of God as a spiritual being to God as Man. This God was represented by a Black Bull with his goddess by his side. This God was a Black Man. The worship of this Black Man–God was codified in a set of religious structures around which grew rituals that were to survive thousands of years, allowing them to be adhered to even today.
The Black Man-God formed the basis of what we today call Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
The Hebrews copied many of these ancient beliefs and incorporated them into their religious structures. The Tabernacle of Moses spoken of in the Old Testament (OT) in the Bible was based on this ancient belief in the incarnation of the spirit of God in human form. In Hebrew, the tabernacle is called Mishkan, which translates as the dwelling or residence in the same way that the Ziggurat was also seen to be the dwelling place of God.
The Ziggurat was taken care of by the priest, the only one admitted into the shrine of the God at the top of the Ziggurat. It was supposed to be the residence or dwelling place of the God worshiped by the Israelites. The tabernacle was built after the square form that Prof. Cauvin talked about in his book. It was deemed to be the house of God.
This incarnation of God in Man is covertly spoken of in the book of Genesis, however its reality and its distinction have escaped the average Jew and Christian. Most people who read the Genesis creation account think it to be the formation of the first man separate and distinct from God himself. However, scholars agree that the Genesis creation account is of priestly origin and was thus written in esoteric language–the meaning of which was only known to the priests and the initiated.
Thus the verse “let us make man in our image and after our likeness” is pregnant with esoteric meaning. First, most English translations of this verse are inaccurate. The precise reading should be: “Let us make man as our image and after our likeness.”
The Hebrew do not say ‘in’ our image (selem) but ‘as’ our image (selem). Still, the translation of selem as image doesn’t do the word justice. In a very important article published in the Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages, Prof. I. H. Eybers traces the S-L root of Hebrew words. Prof. Eybers states that the word selem is derived from the root s-l-m which means (1) cult statue and (2) black. Hence, Adam is the Black statue that would house the spirit or breath of God. Adam is thus the incarnation of God.
H. Wildberger writes in Das Abbild Gotten: “It cannot be stressed enough that Israel… by a daring adaptation of the image theology of the surrounding world, proclaims that a human being is the form in which God himself is present.” This is also confirmed by Andreas Schule in his book The Concepts of Divine Images in Genesis 1-3: “The Cultic image is… the medium of manifest divine presence and action in the world and as such part of the divine. It is to put it pointedly, god on earth. The image was…. that side of the God’s person through which he entered the sphere of created life… the bodily appearance of a God, the very medium… through which he can be addressed by prayer, worship and sacrifice.”
It seems that this original divine incarnation of God in man (Adam) provided the basis for a later cult-statue worship that would permeate the ancient near east. The tabernacle of Moses was simply a copy of this religious concept of God’s divine spirit dwelling on earth as a man. While the Israelites partook of this ancient cult-statue reverence of the Black God, a similar religious activity occurred to the south of Israel in what is called Arabia.
In Arabia an ancient cult was built around a cube-like structure in Mecca (bakkah) that was dedicated to the ancient God called Allah. This cube was and is called the Ka’bah or the Al bayt Allah — the House of God. It is built like the tabernacle of Moses to represent the dwelling of God and is similarly covered with veils.
Contrary to the perception of the pedestrian Muslim, the Kabah and its associated rituals predate Prophet Muhammad by at least 1,000 years. In fact, before the prophet-hood of Muhammad he used to go on pilgrimages to the Kabah just as pre-Quranic Arabs did.
The Kabah was the religious structure dedicated to a God called Allah, similar to the God A-lah of the Proto-Semitic peoples who migrated to Arabia 9,000 years ago from Africa. This ancient God’s name was immortalized through rituals around the Kabah. It is this ancient God of the Black Proto-Semites that through time mutates into the El, Eloh and Elohim of the Old Testament. The Kabah houses a Black meteorite stone deemed to be part of the Deity’s astral body.
In the article “Origin And Significance of the Magen Dawid: A Comparative Study in the Ancient Religions of Jerusalem and Mecca” in the Quarterly Journal in African and Oriental Studies (Archi orientalni), Hildegard Lewy writes that “the black stone was thought to be part of the body of a great God.”
Cheikh Anta Diop describes the similarities between the Arab religion and the religion of ancient Kemet. He particularly notes that some Islamic rituals were named after certain ontological Kemetic words such as Ra, Ka and Ba. He states that: (1) KABAR means the raising of the arms in prayer in Islam, (2) RAKA is the action of placing the forehead on the ground during prayer in Islam and (3) KABA refers to the holy house of God in Mecca.
These similarities between Kemet and Islam become even more apparent when one considers the ontology of the Kemetic words KA, BA and KHAT: (1) KHAT means the immortal body of God, (2) KA means the mortal or physical body of God and (3) BA means the Breath or Spirit of God.
The fact that the Islamic Kabah refers to the physical body (KA) housing the spirit (Ba) of God is no mere coincidence. Does it mean that Islam is an ancient Egyptian religion? No, the data does not allow us to make such a claim. However, it confirms that Ma’at and Islam are cognate religions–children of a common parent religious order at the very least.
Diop also documents that the Kemetic priests fasted for thirty days each year just like in Islamic Ramadan. We are further told that at a certain Temple in Kemet a replica of the God Osiris was placed inside the Temple and the priests of Kemet would circumambulate the Temple in the same way that Muslims circumambulate the Kabah. More to this point, the records show that the Kemetic Priests performed this ritual exactly seven times – the number of times that Muslims do at the Kabah.
Serge Sauneron documents more similarities between Ma’at of ancient Kemet and Islam in his book The Priests of Ancient Egypt. He documents that the Priests of Ancient Egypt performed ablutions four times a day before prayer just like in Islam; although Muslims now pray five times a day, only four prayer times are mentioned in the Qur’an.
Like the Bible, the Qur’an also squares face to face with God’s incarnation as Adam. The Qur’an is however more direct and overt in its description of Adam’s creation by Allah. In Chapter 15:28 it states: “And when your Lord said to the angels: I am going to create a mortal of sounding clay, of Black mud fashioned into shape.”
Thus, in similar fashion as in the book of Genesis, the Adam spoken of here is of Black complexion. Muslims would argue that the Quranic Adam is simply a man and not God incarnate, but such a view becomes problematic in light of the order, which Allah gives the angels to bow down to Adam after God made him complete with His Spirit in Chapter 13:15: “Whoever is in the heavens and the earth makes obeisance to Allah ONLY, willingly or unwillingly…” Chapter 16:48-50 continues: “And don’t they observe anything created by Allah how it casts its shadow right and left, doing its obeisance to Allah ALONE? Thus do all things express their humility to Allah. All the living creatures in the heavens and the earth and all the angels make obeisance in adoration of Allah ALONE…”
The above verses make it clear that ‘prostration’ or obeisance is due to Allah ALONE, so how come angels are asked to bow down to Adam if he wasn’t a God, or if he wasn’t God Himself?
To the east of Arabia another remarkable civilization developed in the Indus Valley of what is now India. It followed a religious order that would later have the Supreme God Vishnu incarnate in Krishna–a Sanskrit word that literally means Black or Dark. Is it a coincidence that yet another people harbored the belief that God incarnated in a Black man?
Wesley Muhammad, a professor of religion, documents that the Buddhists have a ritual called Pradakshina where they circumambulate a Stupa, which is a mount-like structure containing religious relics. The Buddhists inherited this practice from their Hindu forebears who engaged in this ritual in ancient times. Here again we find similarities between Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Ma’at – where adherents circumambulate a structure deemed to be the body of the Black God.
African Traditional Religions (ATRs) are connected to this ritual and belief of the Supreme Being’s incarnation in man. The shrines that are so common in numerous ATRs are an outgrowth of this concept of God dwelling among men and the need for the physicality of God on Earth in order for us, as humans, to interact with Him. When African Traditional worshipers pray they direct their prayers to the God of the shrine, usually a family God. Certain items like stones, wood, figurines or jewelry would be used to represent the physical presence of the God.
This belief among our traditionalists emanates from the ancient religious order that one could only request help from a physical reality and not a vacuum or space. One had to direct one’s prayer to the physical representation of God. Here, too, we find a similar practice in Islam called the qibla, or the direction of prayer. When Muslims pray they face in a direction toward the Kabah, the physical representation of God. Before prophet Muhammad conquered Mecca in 630 A.D, the Muslims faced Jerusalem toward the Temple of Solomon which represented the house of God. The Israelites prayed facing the tabernacle of Moses or the temple. Jewish people also pray facing the ‘wailing wall’ as one has to face a physical representation of the presence of God.
What we find in the ancient world is a universal adoration and belief system in a God incarnated in a Black man. White angels, Jesus and God are only recent inventions in line with the machinations of White supremacy.
Please read Atiga’s second instalment on this topic: The Black God: Myth or Reality.
Yes, brilliant, Atiga Atingdui! This is the kind of Word that properly educated Scholar-Activists, especially the young ones, must spread throughout Ghana, Afrika and the World for Conscientization towards Pan-Afrikan Liberation, Decolonization and Global Justice!
All religions without exception are rooted in myths from Christianity,Islam, Hinduism, Taoism plus Traditional African religion.Whether one prays in a mosque,temple,shrine or cathedral, all the rituals are bogus to an UNKNOWN spiritual entity. The history of religions are just as old as human society; an opiate for the ignorant and gullible believers. Religions are not sciences for advancement of society via technological manufactures and inventive research. Knowing the truth about religions is very important to advance social justice and end exploitation of man by man.
A bold insight into some of our modern faiths. A concise and delicate reading of ancient texts by Atiga Jonas Atingdui. For the religious, this is a must-read. It will turn your faith inside out. It will intrude on your religious numen. It will shock your prescient emotional mind into a logical apparatus for the appreciation of facts. For the spiritual, this is the light at the end of that tunnel, situated fully in Africa, where you can earnestly grasp the meaning of spirituality without the dross of the quarrels of religious institutions.
For the atheist, this is your diet. Here, the table is set. And for the agnostic, this is a pleasant reading of what you may have always doubted in the humble beginnings of a faith in God. Whatever it is you feel, you are now under one massive exercise of reason, and now you will be moved in a world of Black numina, moved not by will but by the application of a Black force, or as you would like, a Black God.
Enjoy.
Appellation paa bi this? Packaging no y3 gold standard wai! Sebisebi wo y3 Akuapim basia anaa?
I’ll definitely read this when I get home from work tomorrow morning.
Akosua, saving to read in the morning. Thanks for your enticing review … or prelude?
Eish, Akosua paaa… I haven’t even started reading and I am already salivating. But I can see why, the topic is juicy, replete with emotions – I will have my pop-corn ready in the morning.
Reason ?Akosua with people about their beliefs .Like squeezing water out of stone !
Thanks, should be a great read for all. I wonder if the author is known to Haille Mariam.
Eish prelude mpo nie , boi! Anyway saved to to read later
Akosua M. Abeka is a genius when it comes to her introductory notes. It’s “appetizing”.
Akosua M. Abeka has a way with words!!
I could not resist reading it straightaway – very brilliantly compelling to read, all over again, the more concisely summed up points I have already read elaborated in various publications. Very well done, Atiga Atingdui, and keep spreading this rich Word!
Detailed for FB but shines a light on this thing people do religion in the 21st century .
These cranks sicken me to the core. It cannot be that they lack intelligence.
If you have the time explain Haille.
With all due respect, I will pass.
How disappointing, I was curiously waiting for Haille’s explanation… but I respect his wish to pass
There’s no art without obsession. There’s no motivation without an amount of eccentricity to reject change or accept reason. So I hope that when the word “cranks” is abused it is rather used as a pou sto to elevate one’s mind towards appreciating analysis and where possible pointing to facts to prove one’s own proclivities. I hope that when “cranks” is abused, it is done to purge one’s mind – and to fashion it towards the understanding that ancient texts were perhaps translated, adapted, and plundered for moral sententiae, apothegms, and imagery.
For I take a word as “cranks” as an unambiguous example of selection bias towards reason. Those who indulge in this bias are already logically bankrupt.
There are as many opinions as there are men: expressing the fact that there is considerable diversity of opinion, and the difficulty of bringing about agreement is not to be captured in words like “cranks” or other such obdurate practices.
At the core, it is logically bankrupt. It can’t even catch a fever. It’s inanimate.
I doubt that the one who used the word ‘cranks’ has even read the article. I quite remember when I wrote about the Black Arabs this same person jumped in to take a bite only to discover he was at the table of the elders instead of the kids. What I have presented are not my own ideas that I just cooked up in the kitchen of imagination. I have quoted learned sources who have made it their life goal to research into the ancient past of civilizations. So yes the ideas may appear strange but only to those who don’t read deep and wide enough. Those who like the porridge that is fed to them day and night with no nourishment for the body may see it as ‘crank’. However those who know that under the veneer of White supremacy lies truth see my article as very factual.
Again, there’s a saying that the man who can change his mind, is the man who’s got one. The world and its views even if they were cast in steel can still melt.
Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.
– Leo Tolstoy
What a beautiful expression.
whether one is religious or not, I hope those who help Europeans and Arabs appropriate faith (not organized/institutionalized religion ) for themselves, stumble across this.
Audu I think you should include should SOME organised institutionalised…..,too
Kari, I’m still waiting for you to name the fairies who wrote the “tales” in the Bible!
Do you Ebenezer believe in fairies?
Kari believes that the whole Bible is a compendium of fairy tales ….
The article be dope rough.
First ( with due respect )I’ve decided no more to indulge in Circuiar arguments with those who argue from a belief standpoint
Funny my father of blessed memory told me more than 40 years ago ‘You can’t disprove belief so it’s not worth the argument ‘
I should have listened.
“What I have presented are not my own ideas that I just cooked up in the kitchen of imagination” Atiga Jonas Atingdui please stop this. This kind of reference to your own self helps people get away with “crimes against Black knowledge”. You are well placed to cook up stuff in your kitchen and serve to us. You are an African, a reflection of our common image and imagination. To my mind, knowledge from you is worth everything. If we will eat stuff cooked by Hobbes and Kant and digest them properly, there is no reason why we should not eat stuff from you, and digest them properly as well.
Well said! Personally I think the best food coming out of any kitchen is African food.
True Audu, Hobbes and co did cook up a bunch of philosophies in their bedrooms and today we quote them in our universities. I stand corrected!
I adore this mentality my dear friends Audu Salisu and Atiga Jonas Atingdui. If Hobbes can cook, we can cook. In the end reason will judge us.
Sorry I haven’t said anything yet because there’s nothing more to add to this rich intellectual engagement on the subject onboard … Kudos to you all my comrades @ Narmer, Audu, Kari, Akosua M. Abeka, Atiga Jonas, Haille etc etc
First I will respond to your lie that I said fairies wrote tales in the Bible .Honestly it’s far beneath you
I will state again what I remember saying .I said Adam and Eve is a fairy story .Men ( women too) right fairy stories .To me as far as crafting a narrative it comes nowhere near the narrative skills ( filled with philosophy)of an Achebe or Soyinka or an Ayi Kwei Armah
Please quote me truthfully
I respect you too much my brother
You are the scholar of Biblical knowledge.Was Moses the man who wrote the fairy story of the man the woman and the snake ?
You might believe it’s true .So we will agree to disagree Finito
With utmost respect
To be fair, Kari, Achebe, Ayikwei and Soyinka possess such narrative skills for crafting a story/fiction/fairy tale as are common to gifted men. The difference with Moses (who admits himself bereft of such gifts to God) is that One of the participants in the act of creation inspired him to write his non-fiction, so Moses has no time to philosophize. He lays down the law as given, himself not spared when commanded to go and die on Mount Nebo. Our literati don’t do that but philosophize as we all do.
I have learn to understand from the table of the wise……. the character of Lions is peculiar to them as well as that of Tigers.
Therefore it should not be seen as strange in character wise, when the Lion does what it known best in doing, however will be very surprise to see a Tiger behaving like a Lion in the animal conference such need a reproach because it “strange”
Therefore what is not “strange” the wise will tolerate and ignore as if it never happened because the “act” fall within it ideological framework
The word to the wise has always been enough on the table of the kinsmen.
……………………………
However my brother you seem to have a strong and convincing argument which i have almost fall for it. A theological argument i have never seen it kind since the day i was born up to date. Very impressive. Have acquired some few lessons to guide me.
Good article ,finally read it , every religious person should get the chance to read it.
Finally settled to read the piece. A wonderful job. Now, this has various implications. ATRs are no different from Islam, Ma’at, Judaism, Islam and for that matter almost other religions for that matter. The so-called Idol Worshippers are as much worshipers of God – they worship God through the physical manifestation (now perhaps transformed into various kinds of idols, legba, amaga, black bull and goddess, utensils, cross, tree, wood, clay, etc.) of God on Earth which has been handed down to us by our ancient Black Men, or Men in Black.
Ok, good. Now. Isn’t Christianity a tad bit different? Jesus, who was a mere mortal became Jesus Christ on the Day of his baptism by John the Baptist (something ordained in Heaven). When he became the Christ, he became a God on Earth. So far, all this stands in the framework. Jesus becomes a representation of the Spirit of God on Earth. The Bible says that a dove (also representing the Spirit of God) descended unto Jesus and then a voice: “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Fine, God has transformed to Man whether he likes it or not.
But where Christianity departs from the rest is the idea that Jesus then died, he was crucified, the body is laid to rest and that physical body is removed/separated from the Spirit. The Spirit arises on the third day and although he still looks like he has a body, he actually does not. The body disappears or is decayed. Who knows? Right? But, He is only spirit now. He then visits his disciples and his wife Mary Madelene – no one else sees him. He rises into heaven telling the disciples that they cannot make for themselves amaga, idols, legba, utensils, wood, trees, of any manifestation of God on Earth. That the fact that he rises ends that practice. Jesus Christ has moved up as a Spirit to meet with God and become One with God. Makes sense?
However, this still doesn’t disprove the Black Man God beginnings of religion. Although what is does is prove that Christianity now has taken a different philosophical step towards the former where there were no representations of God on Earth. You cannot make for yourselves idols no longer!
As to whether all Christians abide by the reading or not, most believe it, although in the face of the worship of the amaga that is Mary in Catholicism and legba Saints.
And let me clarify: Legba is idol in Ewe. Amaga is idol in Ga-Dangme. I like both vocabulary. I use it not because I necessarily speak any of the languages.
So Dade Afre Akufu, what you are saying is this: In order to fully whitewash the religions, the coiners of Christian Doctrine for example had to expunge the Black God at the foundation of their own faith. They had to excise any relations with the Black Man as God’s incarnation on Earth. This is certainly fascinating.
The doctrines about the Death and Resurrection of Christ now represents a washing away of the First Covenant with Man. It establishes the return to God as Spirit and as Abstract stuck in the firmament and unable to make himself known to Man.
Would one say that the ancient “rising and dying” mythologies of Osiris, Mithras, Horus and Jesus were attempts to re-establish God as part of the firmaments again? Or even more that they were exceedingly necessary in laying the foundation for white supremacist ideology in religion?
Dade Afre Akufu you touch on a very interesting point that I wanted to touch on but thought it would make the article too long. Jesus is actually the most misunderstood person in the Bible and Quran. I think I will have to do a part 2 and talk about Jesus and the resurrection of the dead.
I dare Solomon Azumah-Gomez, to even propound the esoteric idea that the re-establishment of God in Heaven and not as Man, Amaga, Legba, Wood, Trees, Rivers, Lates, etc marked the last surviving steps of stable Humanity. If Man can no longer see God – the creator – in the creation, the trees, the lakes, the fishes, the rivers, etc, Man has every right to use and abuse these things. Even as far as owning Man as property that can be put to work – slavery.
Certainly my friend Atiga Jonas Atingdui, that will be awesome!
The resurrection of the dead and Jesus is actually a part of the Black God eschatology. It was written that the gods would die and later on be resurrected to take their place once again as Gods. Jesus the Messiah is the central figure who ushers in the resurrection. The resurrection is not our grandparents rising from Osu cemetary but the dead gods rising into the knowledge of who they are.
Interesting twist.
Atiga Jonas Atingdui, I appreciate the connection although when the gods die, and rise into the knowledge of self, can they be still represented on Earth by Man with an Object?
Look closely into the Kabah ritual and you will see that it also encapsulates the dead Black God tradition or concept. Why are Muslims demanded to remove their national garments and put on the seamless linen cloth called Ihram? That is the same cloth ancient Egyptians used to cloth the mummies, its a funerary cloth. If you look closely the Muslims wear this while going round the Kabah mimicking a wake keeping or filing past a dead body. The body of the God is at the center represented by the Cube and Black stone. They file past the body seven times and on the 7th time the veils are removed exposing the cube
When the gods rise into the knowledge of self there would be no need for the symbols representing Gods incarnation. In fact there is an Hadith where Prophet Muhammad said he saw a Black man break the Kabah. This could mean that when Blacks awaken there would bw no more need for the symbol of the Kabah. This is pregnant with deep meaning
Eish Atiga Jonas Atingdui, this is deep paaaaa!!!
Atiga Jonas Atingdui, but that is scary! What if the Black Man never awakens? What if the whitewashing continues? What if this deeper meaning to the Kabah rituals are not within comprehension for those who still dictate the tenets of Islam and Christianity.
I think, if the Black Man doesn’t awaken he will be destroyed and this planet vanquished by those who have no understanding or deeper comprehension of this Earth.
Like Dade Afre Akufu said, it seems the misappropriation of these deeper meanings are being used at the detriment of Man and his Environment. When people, who don’t understand the levels of transfiguration you have described, can no longer see God in objects of our environment they are happy to destroy them up to and including Man himself. This is what makes it doubly scary.
I don’t want to go deep into this but its impossible for the gods not to awaken. These things are predestined. You see, the Gods were to sleep for 6,000 years and in the 7,000th year they would awaken through the appearance of the Messiah. We are in the 7,000th year now. There is a reason why Jewish people reject the man who came 2,000 years ago as the Messiah. They know their scriptures say the Messiah comes 6,000 years after Adam at the end of the world. All of this is captured in the rituals 🙂
Atiga thanks for your article .When you say ‘things like it’s written and so on ‘ -we seem to take these things written by inspired men thousands of years ago with the little knowledge of the physical world that they have received truth from some deity .They must have either dreamed ideas or heard voices in their heads and written them down and assumed they’re directly from deity .Some of these monks and so on would have lived secluded lives and were probably ‘bonkers’
The phenomenon has happened over the centuries in all continents .Theres no proof any of these so called revelations hold any water
In 2016 it baffles me that we take musings of ancient men that seriously.But of course some of us still believe in ghosts ,Angels demons or would still catch the old woman suffering dementia in the village and subject her to punishment calling her a witch
True, we don’t know anything about the truth or otherwise of these writings and rituals unless of course they are proven to be true. But the notion that our ancestors knew very little about the physical world is not accurate. If you and I were to try to build a pyramid the size of the Giza one we wouldn’t even know where to begin. Is it because they didn’t have an iphone or automobiles? Yet these are the very things polluting the earth today.
Hmm thanks I missed the point thanks .And yet you see then we are talking about verifiable logical or algebraic quantities ,rational calculations by Kermetians ref Pyramids Giza
There may be ritual a prayer to Osiris or whoever but the examples you give have to do with tangible stuff .As the saying goes after enlightenment you have to come to earth and deal with practicalities .Belief in say an African Rennaisance would come through knowledge and invention whether there are or deities or not .I hope you get my drift
I like the history of man grappling with a Universe he’s kind of been thrust into without a handbook and the ideas he comes up with over the ages formulating various philosophies including religious .The tales that are made by the cleverest narrators ,priests perhaps the few who can read and write etc .So a story like the Jews waiting for their Messiah and Jesus and so on belong on realms of backward men perhaps with psychological illness as in Abraham hearing voices about slaughter ,wonderful narratives from history some within us gives great credence to but they seem to be mere fairy stories intertwined with the actual histories of the people /making all the Inspired writings therefore seem true by association .Nevertheless they are a history of world spirituality .Period
I guess my basic training in science makes me not swallow myth whole
Einstein, finds God(in his own words), “subtle”…..
Well Kari let me ask you this; if you predicted that the race between Usain Bolt and myself would result in Bolt winning would you call that a religious prophecy or a rational prediction based on rational use of the law of probabilities? Isn’t the subject of probabilities in mathematics about calling the outcome of an event before it happens? Would you relegate that subject to wizardry or mathematics? How come you don’t put a prediction made by a person 1,000 of years ago in the same boat as a person making a prediction based on the law of probabilities?
Atiga Jonas Atingdui very surprise of your persistent strive to argue your case to convince my Senior Kari Bannerman.
Why?
The locus for both of you to agree never exist because you believe in the Bible/ Quran but he does not believe it. Therefore the cardinal reference of your essay is debunked, that is ok…..leave it and move on because the intersection angle of this debate will never be reach between both of you.
Remember, some case study are left to time to establish the truth, when it theoretical framework has numerous pathway.
This is not the first time under this sun, within the science / intellectual community.
Let rest this case and present your volume 2 to argue strongly on areas of your volume 1. Which you think it was unfairly criticise and why so. This is the traditional guidelines of the science community.
Tweneboah it is true that Kari may not believe in the Bible and the Quran, that is fine. But she believes in science so I want to engage her in that space. My article refers to events and ideas that long predate both Bible and Quran so the fact the she doesn’t believe in those books does no violence to my points.
I would like to engage her using science, which by the way, is a western dichotomy used to separate western thought from ancient or past ideas.
Kari you are preaching to the choir 🙂 . I am all for science, mathematics and rational use of the mind. My point is that there is an assumption that just because one mentions the word God one is by default engaging in some irrational speculation. You see, you need to separate the Greek God of the philosophers from the God of the Proto-Semites and Africans. The Greek God is incorporeal and without form, the God I am talking about is a man. So that is an important distinction because we know men exist.
Having said that, let me state that the ancient world was also very scientific and worked based on precision. How else could they build pyramids so perfectly that a pin or blade can’t pass through the space between the stone blocks? That was a rational mind that produced such feats. So let’s not start from the premise that when we discuss our past we are by default discussing the writings of idiots.
There was a scientific theory in Europe called Spontaneous Generation that postulated that organisms come into being spontaneously. Even such folly was considered science in the western world, if it came from Egypt they would have put it into the religious category.
Now let us engage on a clean slate, no presumptions of folly or superstition on behalf of our ancestors.
I want us to scientifically analyse my article if you are up to it.
And scientifically “fault” the biblical narrative, I’d add!
To start off, let’s deal with the law of probabilities.
At what point does one leave the arena of speculation and dwell in the arena of certainty? If there were 10 horses preparing for a race and you knew ALL the variables that could affect the outcome of the race would you be speculating if you made a bet? If you knew the heart rate, speed, endurance, health status, determination and training history etc of each horse would you be able to make a calculated bet on the winner? Would such a bet lie within the realm of prophecy or mathematics? I am actually getting to something so please indulge me for a moment 🙂
Both of you, Brothers Atiga Atingdui and Kari Bannerman, are awesomely enlightening and your very enlightening sharing, in mutually respectful humility, of deep-going Knowledges, particularly from our own Afrikan Experiences, are educatively mindblowing for some of us! This is what genuinely decolonising Education should encourage among all Afrikans at home and abroad, indeed, among all Black and other peoples who are still being made to colonially and neocolonially suffer in their own homelands the MAANGAMIZI Genocide of the Mind (“Mentacide”) by the poison-dope pushers of the White Supremacy racist bullxxxx of Eurocentric Miseducation!
Atiga will indulge as long as you like .Am on the road which is good it will allow me to listen intently to what you are saying understand before I reply .We may just actually be agreeing
Atiga Jonas Atingdui yes, your philosophizing fall within the perimeter of science comparative to other ridiculous preposition accepted by the west as science. This make it easily to conclude that your paper is an outstanding article to rely upon.
But if you careful study, the argument of Kari Bannerman it not necessary the science of it, that seem to interest him but rather question your fundamental premises that direct your argument.
So to draw references to some of the West Philosophy and submit a comparative case.. such that, you think it makes no logical sense yet uphold by the West and believed by some of us, does not also conclude on the fact that, he Kari even believes in them per the reason that it a science of the west.
That is why i requested if we could move forward because both grounds are correct depending on the spectacle one is wearing at any point in time.
That is why i propose i foresee no intersection but a parallel direction to infinity. So let rest this matter for your volume 2. edition.
Tweneboah you got me ,yes I’m questioning ancient mans understanding of the Universe or Earth .With his relatively limited empirical knowledge he would indulge in superstition and myth and wizards and angels etc plagues meanT the Deity is angry .These are ideas are passed down through text to modern man .Some still believe in these things just because they were written or passed down by oral tradition .But there is good reason why superstition and new myth are nearly non existent in the 21st century .We have a better evidence based understanding of our physical world .Oh there is ritual -if the double helix of DNA is discovered there will be ritual and celebration at the Nobel .The problem in Africa is when what was a ritua after a fact or a discovery in herbalism say ,that celebration in ritualistic form supersedes the hard work of the herbalist who gathered plants and classified them .
So in a sense what am saying though there maybe volumes written on ancient times ,we must take them with a pinch of gari !_the scribes of Jesus times were the few shepherds who could write with a very limited worldview .Jesus himself never mentions the people of Africa once .He would have been a man with a limited world view eventually getting an overblown ego thinking he is the begotten son of a Deity( out of all the millions in the Levant at the time! ) -this we can deduce from modern psychology .As we can Abraham when he wants to slaughter his son because he hears voices -mental illness .With what we know now that is a psychological condition
We must take historical narratives on faith with a large dose of skepticism -inspite of dates and so on
I mean who was in the room when God ( or is it Gabriel ) impregnated Mary to tell us about it ?A voyeur ?
Atiga I will now go back to your first article again but please give us the 2nd instalment and come back to me when you have dealt with those who already ahead of me in your class !THANK YOU
I’ve had a ‘blast’ reading first the article and then the comments. Atiga, I’m waiting for the part 2. Akosua M Abeka, I’m happy you shared.
You missed Rama of the Hindoos ! Rama was a African ! But all the Idols of Rama in India are White skinned or Blue skinned !
Hindoos state that Rama of Ramayana was a fair skinned blue eyed god.In reality,as per the Ramayana, Rama was a black skinned man (as stated below) whose wife ran off and was in love with another african,who was the king of Lanka – called Ravana.
This is the verse
Book II : Ayodhya Kanda – Book Of Ayodhya
Chapter[Sarga] 2
तेषामायाचितं देव त्वत्प्रसादा त्समृद्ध्यताम् |
राममिन्दीवरश्यामं सर्वशत्रुनिबर्हणम् || २-२-५३
पश्यामो यौवराज्यस्थं तव राजोत्तमाऽअत्मजम् |
“Oh best of kings, Dasaratha ! We shall see Rama adorned with princely kingdom. Your son Rama has the complexion of a black lotus flower and annihilates all his enemies. Let the wish of the people be fulfilled by your grace.
Rama’s wife spent 12 years with Ravana – and produced 2 kids – Luv and Kush.The Kushites of Africa claim lineage from Kush (Ravana was a Black man and Kush was Black)
This is a source of acute discomfort to the Hindoos !