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leslie
Leslie
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« on: December 26, 2003, 03:28:00 PM »

Friday 26th December 2003
Trinidad Newsday
A Bible review
By Kevin Baldeosingh
     If you are a parent, you may not want to leave this book lying around the house. Much of the material is not suitable for children. The very first chapter has nudity, fratricide, incest, genocide, and more incest. Not even the most lurid soap operas would dare go so far. The book is undoubtedly well-written. In many parts, the prose soars, although the long lists of names do make it dangerous to read while operating heavy machinery. Also, would any sane parent really name their child Meschech or Togarmah? It is this which first raises doubts about this book, which claims to be true both factually and morally.
     Indeed, the name of the book’s author is itself problematical. Although believers call the book God’s Word, it is not really clear who God is. In Genesis chapter 32 verse 29, God simply refuses to reveal his name to Jacob, but later he tells Jacob to call him El Shaddai (Gen. 35:11). Later still, he introduces himself simply as El (Gen. 46:3) – presumably because by then he felt comfortable enough with Jacob to be informal. However, Jacob ignores both these names and prays to God as Abaoth, Abrathiaoth, Sabaoth, Adonai, and Astra. Obviously, Jacob didn’t feel he knew God well enough to address him by one name, let alone one syllable. In Hosea 2:16, God instructs Hosea to stop calling him Baali and address him as Ishi, though this reviewer does not believe that this would have stopped the giggling. In Exodus 6:2, God calls himself Yahweh but pronounces it YHWH, which is why so many of the prophets had twisted tongues.
      Nobody knows what was behind all these name changes, but some theologians speculate that God may have owed people money.
      Additionally, God did not choose to write his own Word, but employed ghost-writers instead. Maybe he was too busy sending plagues or maybe God writes like Lloyd Best. Theologians believe that it is this plenitude of scribes which has led to the Bible being so contradictory, but those contradictions lead to a deeper problem: for if all these writers were inspired by God, and if God is omnipotent and omniscient, then surely it was within his power to ensure that the Bible was error-free.
     Far from being factually accurate, however, the Bible is riddled with mistakes. Indeed, God’s writers even get their history wrong. For example, one of the most famous Biblical stories is that of Joshua bringing down the walls of Jericho. However, although it is true that walls of Jericho did fall, archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon, by dating Mycanaean pottery shards found in the ruins, found that the destruction had occurred no later than 1300 BC. This was 70 or more years before Joshua could have learnt to blow a trumpet.
     The Bible writers also seem to have invented key events and personalities in the book. Evidence uncovered by archaeologists after the Six-Day War of 1967 reveal that the account of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt in Exodus was made up out of whole cloth. Archaeologists also now believe that Abraham, Isaac and other Biblical patriarchs didn’t even exist but were created out of local lore. Even the famous King Solomon, if he existed at all, never built a fabulous city at Jerusalem.
     It seems that the Bible writers were using details of their own time, round about the middle of the first millennium, to tell stories of events that happened – only they didn’t, really — at the beginning of the early second millennium. And God didn’t even call down to his prophets and say, “Hey, bub, get your facts straight or I’ll give you boils!” Perhaps the hotline from Heaven wasn’t working that day, and it seems the divine phone wasn’t fixed till the Catholic Church came to foot the bill, in return for which God made all Popes infallible.
     But the wrong history is not the worst error in the book. Far more egregious are the scientific ones. Indeed, for an omniscient being, God is astonishingly ill-informed. He believes the Earth is flat (Revelations 7:1 speaks of the “four corners of the Earth” and Job 9:6 of the Earth’s pillars) and that the sun moves (Joshua 9:12 and Job 9:7). But the most glaring errors are at the very start of the book, since the Biblical account of creation contradicts the facts of both astronomy and evolution. And here, factual error is exacerbated by ethical transgression, for the creation story in Genesis is plagiarised wholesale from another book, the Enuma elish of the Babylonians.
     This is where the Bible really falls down. Factual errors are not fatal to a book, even if what is essentially a work of fiction claims to be absolute truth. But if a book is presented as a moral guide, then the very least it should do is promote moral behaviour. Instead, what do we find? At the very start of his book, God lies to Adam and Eve, telling them they would die if they ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (Gen. 2:17-18). Not only did they not die, but Adam lived to the ripe old age of 930 years. Later, God admits, “I form the light and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7). This verse underlies many of God’s actions, such as his promotion of genocide (1Sam 15:18), his using two she-bears to kill the 42 small children who mocked the prophet Elisha (2Kings2:23-5), as well as his insistence that death is the proper punishment for defying one’s parents, adultery, homosexuality (Leviticus 9:9-11, 13) blasp hemy (Lev. 24:15) and a woman not being a virgin on her wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:21).
     Such laws account for the moral narrow-mindedness of people like Anglican archbishop Calvin Bess, while God’s Word also explains religious leaders like pastors Winston Cuffie, Clive Dottin, Vishnu Lutchmansingh, and Terrence Browne: “The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets” (1Kings 22:23).
      All this is not to say that the Bible isn’t a good read. But it is to say that you shouldn’t believe everything – in this case, most things – that you will find between its covers. This Good Book is available at all leading bookstores, as well as bookstores which only follow.
      

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Bantu_Kelani
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« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2003, 12:58:56 AM »

Interesting piece, Sister. Thank you. If one is intelligent, and study the symbolism and philosophy behind the Bible, instead of believing sexist and racist stereotypes then one may become enlightened.

B.K
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We should first show solidarity with each other. We are Africans. We are black. Our first priority is ourselves.
ILovGod
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« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2004, 10:18:39 PM »

God, His words and Christian I love.

As a parent I would in deed have my child read the Bible for in it is truth and life .
1. You claim that the Bible in the first chapters have in it nudity, fratricide, incest, genocide, and more incest, but if you were not blind you would have seen that God created men and women naked and without shame it was perfectly normal until sin came by disobeying God, and now we have dirty, perverted minds in this world. If kids read the bible they will see a perfect world without sin, and they will see when you disobey God what sin does and how dirty and ugly it really is to disobey God and His words. God give His commandments in Leviticus 18, 19 & 20 against incest, murders, and other sins, and here you will fine the perfect capital punishment from God, unlike today where you have corrupt lawyers and judges sending innocent men to prison and death.
2. God is the arthur of His words and He moved men to write without error what He wanted us to know. There's no contradictions in the bible for the bible interprets itself what a person may not understand in one chapter it will be clearer in another part of the book example Daniel & Revelation, and the whole bible.
God name is both Holy and Sacred and this is why the jews used other names to discribe God for example Jehovah.
You and others like you should never use Yahweh. There is a great meaning to this name, but you shall never know it unless you are change.
3. You do not understand what God was saying in Hosea 2:16 this has nothing to do with the name of God, but a meaning that you do not understand.
4. You said that the walls of Jericho did fall, but not in Joshua's time, because an archaeologist by dating Mycanaean pottery shards found that the destruction had occurred no later than 1300BC which is 70 or more years before Joshua could of learnt to blow a trumpet.
If so then Joshua could of seen into the future, and since Joshua could see into the future he knew the name of the town would be Jericho, and he could see that the walls and the city would not be destroy by fire from fighting an invading army, but the walls would of fallen down instead am I right you Judge.
5.You claim that by these archaeologists evidence from the six-day war in 1967 that the Exodus from Egypt was made up, Abraham, Isaac and other Biblical Patriarchs didn't exist even King Solomon then if King Solomon did not exist then why is there this very day in Jerusalem part of King Solomon temple existing, If Abraham and Isaac did not exsit then where did the Isrealite came from, Why are they still here, and many more questions I can ask. even more to prove God is real and His words true in the very first chapter of the bible God created the world and man in six days ok how long did the war lasted in 1967 with the Isrealite? six days, what is the war known by? the Six-Day War. and God rested on the Seventh day so seven is known as perfect, how many days in a week, is it not true that most people work from Mon-Fri or Mon-Sat and rest one day.
6.You claim that there is error in the bible and that God is ill- informed He believes the earth is flat and you Quoted Revelation 7:1 the four corners of the earth any child could tell you that this is talking about east, west, north and south the four corners of the earth, Job 9:6 the earths pillars which is its mountains, and foundations of coures, Joshua 9:12 has nothing to do with the sun and Job9:7 God commanded the sun not to rise does it not look as if the sun rises to us then this is the example God give to us in His words, so that we can understand what God meant, and this is in history where the whole day was without light; the one day of darkness.
If you read the book of Job it explains to us how rain begins with condensation and evaporation which you will learn in science classes of science book but back then there was no study of science, science classes or science books read Job 26:7.
7. You said God lied to Adam and Eve, telling them they would did if they ate of the fruit from the tree of knowledge (Gen.2:17-18) then you went on and said that they did not die Adam lived for 930 years, but yet you did not understand what God meant. When God meant is a death spiritually seperated from God, before they ate from that tree of knowledge they had a perfect relationship with God, they could talk to God and God would talk to them, but when they disobey and sin they lost that relationship and closeness with God until the second Adam Jesus came who did no sin, took the punishment of our sins upon Him on the cross and rose 3 days later that we may be reconcile back to God if we believe in Jesus as our Lord and savior.Nor did God create evil but he allows evil for a time this is a bad translation from the Hebrew word
God you claim is a God who promotes genocide and you give examples, well this is Gods perfect way of getting rid of evil people so they will not corrupt the nation of Isreal which is God chosen people if we let people continue to do evil, murder, rape, and so on without punishment will they stop? and if they are getting away with such crimes will not others do the same, or commit other crimes thinking they also will get away with it. dont we have punishment in prisonment and death for crimes?, dont we see evil getting worse and worse.
The Bible is the only book that have prophecies fulfilled, being fulfilled, and will be fulfilled 100% correct read Danial 2. the statue representing nations that will come and go the head was babylon and so on, and history proves that just as the bible says so it happened, Matthew 24. shows us the things that will happen just before Christ returns, and it is happening right now. Read Matthew 24. in the bible, and compare it to todays news, and read Revelation to see what is to come all this is prove that the bible is accurate and true
Please read Psalm 14, and Romans 1. This is for people who dont believe, who eyes, and hearts are blinded to the truth.
How can anyone believe in evolution unless they have a small mind, a big bang and the world was formed and life began. There's no prove of such foolihness, sicentist cannot prove it, but made up lies, how can man evolve from monkeys this is all to excape reality of a God who created and judges. Add a hundred years to your life where would you be? There is a God and a hope in Heaven and a fear of Hell it's all real look at ancient time, look at uncivilized people in the jungle; we all worship a God, or many Gods it's in our heart to worship God, God puts it in our heart to worship Him, but we have corrupted ourselves and worship people, sports, TV, Movie stars, Money, Cars, Houses, Nature and all other forms of Idolatry Romans 1:21-32
It is not moral narrow-mindedness, but a just way to deal with evil people who love wrong doing, but today we have become tolerant as so we have kids commiting serious crimes, crimes on the up rise, because we want to accept peoples sin and then say there's no right or wrong, there's no true moral standards because their's no God. and so the world is not getting better by tolerance and acceptance, but is getting worse and worse, the only true peace and hope of peace is from the Prince of Peace Christ Jesus our hope and Savior to those who believe.
The bible is not a good book, but a book of truth and life a book on how to love and to do to others as you will want them to do to you, it is a book of true fulfillment with God in our lives no matter the struggles in this life there is happiness with our Savior by our side. What hope do you have when you die?
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Bantu_Kelani
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« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2004, 02:34:50 AM »

Quote
author=ILovGod
What hope do you have when you die?

We have to demand our full human rights as fully evolved human beings HERE and NOW, regardless of where we came from, and whether we will experience a better existence after death. Life comes from life!! Life does not come from lifelessness speculations and dialectical materialists beliefs. We need to redefine religious concepts, for we are looking outside of ourselves to find a God that does not represent our true selves spiritually. The Creator Source (the garden of Eden) is therein, where it reaches down in love to draw humans toward it. This is but a source of peace, wisdom and POWER therein and NOW!!


Bantu Kelani.

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We should first show solidarity with each other. We are Africans. We are black. Our first priority is ourselves.
ILovGod
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« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2004, 11:06:09 AM »

As beatiful as you may sound, yet you are in error we need to forgive and move on from the pass, we must not blame whites of today who has nothing to do with pass. We see whites marrying blacks, and although there are a few whites who are prejudice we have the majority on our side.
We see in the bush Adminstration blacks in high positions like Collin Powel, and Sis. rice, and also we have many sucessful black own buisnessmen and women; it has been a big change from slavery to now.
Life does not come from life, but from God who gives life babies are a blessing from God. We are full of dead mens bones there's nothing good within us we are all sinners and within us are full of hatred, anger, fornication, adultry, thefts, murders and many more evil as hard as we try to be better people we all have fail, this is why we need a Savior to change us from within by His Spirit.
God do represent our true spiritual selves in His words we are sinners who need Gods saving Grace.
We must stop confusing the Christian religion with white people this is Jewish history not Eroupean, we see people just as in Islam religion extremist who go to far, and so we have people like the kkk who think that what they do is in the name of God, but God will Judge these people into everlasting punishment.
There is no source of peace, wisdom or POWER therein and now not without God For God is the only source of peace no matter how hard man try to get along and have peace without God man cannot, and this is why God in his words wants us to live with love, and peace to everyone not in the flesh for we will fail,  but by his spirit once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.
We as black people must stop following false religions which is idolitry, and look to the one true God who created us we hate white people which is not right, but yet we believe there lies when it comes to science and evolution. When it comes to humans we did not evolve, but was created by an Almighty God open your eyes and hearts to see the truth and come out from amoung lies blessed is the Lords name forever therein is our hope and glory.
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out_of_Zion
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« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2004, 12:20:44 PM »

Quote
God name is both Holy and Sacred and this is why the jews used other names to discribe God for example Jehovah.
You and others like you should never use Yahweh. There is a great meaning to this name, but you shall never know it unless you are change.


You're a little off here.  Yahweh is the Hebrew pronunciation of the tetragrammaton, YHWH, or the letters read in succession left to right, "Yohdh, He, Waw, He."  It is believed it was pronounced "Yah-weh."  

However, "Jehovah" is not an "other name" used in place of Yahweh.  It is another interpretation of how to pronounce THE SAME tetragrammaton.  Jews that believed the mythological connotations of not using the Divine name actually refused to use any name at all.  Some even spelt God as G-d.  That said, Jehovah is the English version of the name Yahweh, with the sounds Anglicized.  The same holds true for Jesus.  His name was not pronounced Jesus by the people of his day, but rather something more like "Yesh-ua" or "Yash-ua,"  but the English version is changed to a J instead of a Y.

The fact that God's name should never be used though is a Jewish superstition.  Jesus said we should "let his name be santified" (or "hollowed be thy name" KJV), Mt 6:9.  That means it should be declared and made known.

"The NAME OF JEHOVAH is a strong tower.  Into it the righteous one runs and is given protection."  -Prv 18:10
"That PEOPLE MAY KNOW that you, WHOSE NAME IS JEHOVAH, You alone are the most high over all the earth." -Psalm 83:18

So it's clear that His name should be known & used, not obscured.  It did, afterall, appear in the Biblical text 7,311 times before the clergy of Christendom removed it all 7,311 times.
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Therefore, become imitators of JAH, as beloved children - Ephesians 5:1
FYAHMAN
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« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2004, 01:27:04 PM »

 Huh Some of us tink we shouldah satisfy wid crumbs and uncle tom tokenism; from genocidal criminals.  Dere are dose who need a fyahing squad fi wake up to di Ifreecahn reality of BLOOD and FYAH GENOCIDE!!!!
As  usual dem claim seh dem love GOD?!!!!; yet manifest di werks of SATAN and always wid a program of pius pacification. THE VAIL HATH BEEN LIFTED FROM InI EYEIS.                                                                                                                                                          
Education for a New Reality in the African World
By John Henrik Clarke
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Part 9 of 10
Education Is Power
Recently some of the new leaders of African nations
are beginning to sell their gold mines to Europeans,
land to Europeans and to make concessions within
Africa that violate the traditional values of African
people. What these European-minded Africans fail to
remember is that by custom and culture, land in
African can neither be bought nor sold because land
has been traditionally seen as the collective property
of the whole people and no leader has the right to
sell this birthright and the birthright of generations
of Africans still to come because land is essential to
nationhood. For more information about the land
problem in Africa I suggest you read, The Truth About
the West African Land Problem, by Casely Hayford, and
Facing Mt. Kenya and Kenya, Land of Conflict by Jomo
Kenyatta.

Education for a new reality in the African world must
be an education that enables the African to handle all
of the wealth producing resources of Africa. An
education that enables the African to manage and
market these resources and an education that enables
him/her to prepare the generations still to come to do
the same thing. A large number of African children
should be chosen at birth and trained toward these
ends and all education should be for the total
sovereignty of African people. There is nothing in
African traditional values that prohibits modernism,
upward mobility, or the use of science and technology.
Africans must realize that they live in a modem
technical world and that there are lessons we can draw
from our ancient societies to guide us. Africa has to
move with the age in which it finds itself in order to
survive.

What I am proposing here is a holy order of
commitment. In the future we can not leave land and
nation management to chance. What I am alluding to
here is the establishment of an international
priesthood of liberation and an institute to maintain
that priesthood. If we are to go back to nationhood
and be safe and secure, we must understand that a
nation must be a cultural, political and economic
container of the national and international
aspirations of a people. The commitment to maintain
the nation and secure it against all enemies, both
foreign and domestic, must be part of everyone's
mission, not something left solely to politicians.
Africans the world over must stop playing games about
who is an African. Everyone in Africa who cannot be
addressed as an African is either an invader or a
descendant of an invader. It is time for the African
to ask the guests in their house the question: What is
your mission in my house? and-Do you have any loyalty
or commitment to the preservation of my house, as I
conceive it to be? Africans must be bold enough to let
the non-African in Africa know that, "I will share
power with you in Africa to the extent that you are
willing to share power with me in Europe. You demand
and get the prevailing power m your countries and I
have every right to demand and get the prevailing
power in my country." Africans should demand and get
Africa as African-ruled as France is French-ruled and
England is English-ruled. Too many times Africans are
expected to share power with others who have no
intention of sharing power with them. In educating
Africans to realistically face the world of the
immediate tomorrow, I am referring to the essential
selfishness of survival.

My subject, Education for a New Reality in the African
World, was not casually chosen. I have spoken and
written on this subject or some aspect of it many
times over the years. I have exhausted my arguments in
favor of the subject without losing my passion for the
subject. And yet I still have not made everyone
understand the importance of education; education is
power. When education is properly done, education
opens the door to power. A true education has one
purpose, and one purpose alone: to train the student
to be a handler of power. One of the things that we
fail to understand is that our oppressor cannot afford
to educate us to handle power. We live in a society
where, if we were properly educated, we would not ask
for power. We would take power. We will have to stop
answering to names that our mothers and fathers did
not give us. We will have to stop answering to names
of which we are not.

The real crisis facing black educators began a long
time ago with things we did not understand. I think
back to reading about a scene of an African being
forced on a slave ship, and he reaches back and puts a
handful of African dirt in his mouth. I think that
African understood more about education than most of
us. He understood the basis of nation-land. Until we
understand the land basis of education and the nation
basis of education, we will miss the point. Where did
we go wrong and when did we stop being innovators and
became imitators?

In the nineteenth century we began to be "those things
most unlike ourselves." When we had the golden
opportunity to set a new tone in education, we tried
to be like our oppressor instead of setting a new
basis for education. Professor Ivan Van Sertima says
that European expansion into the broader world and
European colonization of history have locked us into a
"five hundred year room" of history. A room wherein
African people and their contributions to the world
were removed from history. The basis of education for
a new reality is to pull us out of this five hundred
year room. We have to understand what was wrong with
our education and examine the nineteenth century in
the African world. The nineteenth century might have
been the greatest century in the whole of the African
world. This might be the century that we have to go
back and examine in order to survive in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries.

We produced the finest minds that we have produced
since the decline of Egypt and Nile Valley
Civilization in the nineteenth century. We produced
the rebels, the activist mentality, the realists in
the nineteenth century. This is the century of
Frederick Douglass and Martin I)elaney. This is the
century of the great ministers, who tower over Martin
Luther King, Jr. and were more realistic than Martin
Luther King, Jr. Taking nothing from Dr. King, this is
the century of Henry Highland Garnett whose motto was
"Resistance, Resistance, Resistance." This is the
century of a search for Africa again. This is the
century of the great black women: Sojourner Truth and
Harriet Tubman. We have forgotten that century, but we
will not orient ourselves in the twentieth century
until we go back to that century, and I was just
talking about what was happening in the United States.

When we look at the Caribbean Islands, this is a
century of physical resistance. Looking at South
America, especially Brazil, Africans brought into
being two black nations. African captives were able to
by-pass the auction block, escape into the hinterlands
and form African nations. One of these nations,
Palmares lasted for one hundred and ten years. The
other one, Bahia, lasted almost as long. During this
century African cultural continuity produced the most
successful slave revolts in the history of the world.
The best known revolts were those in Jamaica and in
Haiti. Jamaica fought longer and harder than Haiti,
but Haiti was able to bring off an independent state
and Jamaica could not, and we wonder why.

Haiti fought over a shorter period with a greater
degree of consistency, and hit the French at a
strategic time-when Napoleon was involved with other
campaigns in Europe. They were successful in their
revolt. When the Jamaicans revolted, their revolts
were put down and too much time elapsed between
revolts, giving the British time to destabilize them.
After each defeat the Jamaicans had to remount each
revolution from scratch. The time lapse did not give
them the facility to bring forth a nation, while the
total of the Haitian revolutions (there were more than
one) happened over a twenty year period.

The physical resistance in the Caribbean Islands
challenged Europe and changed the geography of this
hemisphere. Because of the challenge of the Caribbean
Islands-Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean-Jacques
Dessalines, and Christophe-Napoleon had to sell the
Louisiana Territory. These Caribbean revolutions
brought into being the stimulation for the massive
slave revolts in the United States.

While we are looking at the Caribbean, let's look at
the Caribbean mind and its contribution to the
stimulation of black social forms in the United
States. We need to understand that the Caribbean mind
never functioned well at home. Once the Caribbean mind
begins functioning well it is driven away from home.
The Caribbean mind has a way of producing seed that
does not grow in the soil of the Caribbean. The soil
was fertile in the United States and the best of these
minds came here. It started with Prince Hall. Robert
Campbell would come here. He would travel with Martin
Delany to Africa and write A Search for a Place. John
B. Russwurm would edit Freedom's Journal. Peter Ogden
was one of the founders of Odd Fellows. Prince Hall
would found the Masons. H. Sylvester Williams had
tried to establish a Pan-African League in Trinidad.
It failed. Trinidadians did not pay any attention to
it. The same thing happened when Marcus Garvey started
his Universal Negro Improvement Association and
African Communities League in Jamaica. He could not
get it off the ground. The soil would not take the
seed. The greatest contribution to the formal idea of
Pan-Africanism was made by three Trinidadians: H.
Slyvester Willlams, C.L.R. James, and George Padmore.
Why couldn't these minds function at home? You can
trace the history of these minds for two hundred years
all the way up to Marcus Garvey, including those that
returned home and were killed. None of them were
accepted at home.

The greatest and clearest of the minds of the
nineteenth century was Edward Wilmot Blyden. What he
said about education in his famous inaugural address
at Liberia College, in 1881, said more about education
over one hundred years ago than we are saying right
now. He said:

We will have to work for many years to come. Not only
without the popular support that we must have, but
with inadequate resources.

...We strive to be those things most unlike ourselves.
No matter what talent we have, we feed grist into
other people's mills and, of course, nothing comes out
except what has been put in. And that then is our
great sorrow.

This was said in 1881, over one hundred years ago, and
we are still doing it. Edward Wilmot Blyden was one of
the finest voices of the nineteenth century. He was
not only ahead of his time, he is ahead of this time.

Let's look at Africa in the nineteenth century. This
is the century of the massive anti-colonial revolts.
This is the century when the African world faced
reality as it had never faced reality before. In the
first half of the century, the Zulu Wars in Southern
Africa had already started. The Ashanti Wars in Ghana
had already started. The Islamic Wars in the Sudan had
already started. The Maji Maji Wars in Tanganyika and
neighboring territories, and the Riff Wars in North
Africa had already started. And the wars in Nigeria
led by Ousmane Dan Fodio had already started.

The physical confrontation diminished as the slave
trade turned into Colonialism (another form of
slavery) and the Africans soon realized that
missionary efforts were also a form of slavery. The
Europeans began to take away the African energies and
began to destroy the African images of god. One of the
ways to continue to enslave a people is, after
removing one set of chains from their body, to place
another set of chains on their mind. Not only make
them change their religion but make them abandon their
religion. Make them change their dress, their tastes,
their music, their food, and when this is done, you
don't need any prison walls to confine these people.
The prison walls inside their mind will be more
binding than any prison walls you can construct.

Once we face the reality of the imprisonment of the
African mind in the nineteenth century, we will face
up to what was happening to that mind. We will look at
the debates between blacks and blacks and look at the
blacks going to Liberia to "Christianize" their
"heathen" brothers. Read Alexander Crummell's work.
Alexander Crummell was a great black missionary. But
Alexander Crummell was a missionary with the mentality
of a white missionary. He was going to Africa to
spread Christianity in a continent where every element
that originally went into the making of Chrisfianity,
Islam, and Judaism began. Every element that went into
these three religions had long been in practice on the
African continent.

Once we understand the nature of our oppressor's
religious oppression, we must look at the mentality of
our respective oppressors. The oppressor in the United
States has taught us to face reality better than any
of the others. The oppressors in the Caribbean area
and in South America gave their black population the
illusion that one day they would be allowed to join
the club. The oppressor in the United States has
taught us explicitly that we will never join the club.
Even with what we like to call integration, another
fakery, they still let us know that if we manage to
get into the club, we will never be accepted.

In the physical integration in the Caribbean Islands
and in South America, if you are almost white a
special place is made for you in society. You are not
allowed in the house, but you would be allowed in a
designated area close to the house. In the United
States, the crudest of oppressors say, if you've got
one drop of one drop you will be placed with the
blackest of blacks and at one word, all of you will be
placed in the same sack. Although the females with the
one drop had some advantage in the domestic job market
and the husband market, and another market which I
will not mention, no place was made for them in their
father's house. And this is reality.

In my research for this paper, I re-read a
dissertation on religion written by an African
attending Syracuse University. His dissertation
detailed why African religions never became world
religions. He said they had no pews, no collection
plates, no temples, no missionaries, everything was
free. He asked the question: How can such a religion
become a world religion? Nobody was exploiting
anybody. Priests were free. The community paid the
priest so they did not have to pass the hat. The
community brings the priest his food and makes his
clothes. He pointed out that all of the elements that
we call Christianity came out of Africa. All of the
symbols of Christianity came out of Africa. He
explained that when the people from Israel came into
Africa, they had no clear religion, no law and no
language, when they left they had all three. His
dissertation was not well received by Syracuse
University and he was thrown out, in 1933.

I would like to approach my conclusion with quotations
from great African American women poets because in the
great civilizations of Africa, long before we knew
Europeans existed, women were revered, were treated
equally and moved freely through the society and
played all kinds of roles. The first deity in history
was seen as a female goddess. The first woman to ride
at the head of an army was an ancient Africa woman.
The first woman to challenge the foreigner challenged
Octavius, who later became Caesar Augustus. Another
African woman challenged Alexander of Macedonia.

In her poetry, Mari Evans has said that part of the
immediate solution to education is to "speak the truth
to the people." With this she implies that if you give
people the light, they will find their way.

In her early poetry, Pauli Murray, now The Reverend
Dr. Pauli Murray, speaking of freedom, in her Dark
Testament, says:

Freedom is a thing like amber wine
that lures man down a path of skulls.

For they killed the dreamer but not the dream
the dream is always the same.
The dream is about freedom.

Professor Carolyn Fowler of Atlanta University, in
speaking of the need to bring African people back
together again, said:

We need to look at each other more. We need to get
acquainted with each other's personality. We need to
remove the strangeness that has grown up between us
across all the seas and all the centuries.
Margaret Walker challenges us to take action in her
classic poem, For My People. She called for us to:

Let the new earth begin.
Let a new race of men rise and take control.
We will accept her challenge and my answer to her will
be, Sister Margaret, we are people of vision and we
see tomorrow, not as a male-dominated tomorrow, but as
a collective tomorrow with males and females
functioning as equals. We will say to her: We have
heard the martial music. We have heard the trumpet
call. We accept the challenge. We are the new men who,
with our women at our side as equal partners in this
enterprise, are prepared to take charge.

As we enter the twenty-first century there will be
over one billion African people on the face of the
earth. Properly counted, the Africans in the United
States, the 1990 census says, are at 30,000,000, and
the census takers missed over twenty percent of us. In
the Caribbean there are 60,000,000 admitted people of
African descent. In Asia there are millions who are
African, whether they know it or not, and on the
islands of the Pacific that are several more million
who are yet to consider their African ancestry. The
population of Africa was last fixed at over
700,000,000 and continues to grow.

These are staggering figures. Our study of history has
taught us that we were yesterday's people, and by our
shear numbers we will be tomorrow's people too. With
this understanding of our new importance we can change
the world, if first we change ourselves by educating
ourselves for this new reality. When we count one
billion of this earth there will be very few people
who we will need as allies. The main allies that we
will need we will be able to find among ourselves. We
will be the only people who will have a continent for
themselves. We will not be an oppressed people and we
will not be an oppressor of any people. We will not
need to exploit or take advantage of other people. We
could bring to the world a new humanity and build a
new age of man. This might be our mission, it might be
the greatest legacy that we can leave for mankind.
--
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ILovGod
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« Reply #7 on: January 03, 2004, 04:55:37 PM »

 Out of zion you are right in many things you have said, but the jews hold the true name of God YHWH as sacred and holy to avoid using this divine name (out of supposed reverence) Adonai, 'Lord' was substituted in public reading. Yahweh is related to the Hebrew verb 'to be' This verb goes beyond 'to exist'; it means rather 'to be actively present'. Jehovah is rather used my most people as well as other names for God than the personal name Yahweh.
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ILovGod
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« Reply #8 on: January 03, 2004, 05:05:58 PM »

FYAHMAN, it will be nice if you can write in plain English than to go backwards in writing broken english. Live for today, live with Forgiveness, live in love, for bitterness and hate will not take you far, but instead to an early grave. What was taken away from us is gone now its time to move on.
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FYAHMAN
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« Reply #9 on: January 03, 2004, 05:36:51 PM »

Yuh ansah show di brainwashment; Ah InI invent linguah; but a one like yuh woudah nevah know dat. Cause yuh deh busy a do di slave massah will of GENOCIDE. Go serve yuh ponitification as dinnah to di suffahrahs. Ah yuh whomus come forwahd and stop chat broken latin-german.
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out_of_Zion
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« Reply #10 on: January 03, 2004, 08:07:10 PM »

ILovGod,

not all Jews adhere to that SUPERSTITION

There is no scriptural basis for the belief that Yahweh or Jehovah is too sacred to be used in personal prayer, congregational prayer, or public reading.  

And the name can also be rendered as "I shall prove to be" or "He causes to become," in addition to "I am" and "I am who I am," as you wrote.

Lastly, you wrote,
Quote
Jehovah is rather used my most people as well as other names for God than the personal name Yahweh.


It'd be nice if that were true, but most people either do not know God's name, do not use God's name, or think it is Jesus.  Very few use his name as we were instructed to, and even fewer publically make his name known to the world as Jesus instructed his followers to (Mt 24:14; 28:19,20).
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Therefore, become imitators of JAH, as beloved children - Ephesians 5:1
ILovGod
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« Reply #11 on: January 03, 2004, 08:29:01 PM »

You are right.
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Bantu_Kelani
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WWW
« Reply #12 on: January 04, 2004, 04:54:25 AM »

Quote
As beatiful as you may sound, yet you are in error we need to forgive and move on from the pass, we must not blame whites of today who has nothing to do with pass. We see whites marrying blacks, and although there are a few whites who are prejudice we have the majority on our side.
We see in the bush Adminstration blacks in high positions like Collin Powel, and Sis. rice, and also we have many sucessful black own buisnessmen and women; it has been a big change from slavery to now.
Life does not come from life, but from God who gives life babies are a blessing from God. We are full of dead mens bones there's nothing good within us we are all sinners and within us are full of hatred, anger, fornication, adultry, thefts, murders and many more evil as hard as we try to be better people we all have fail, this is why we need a Savior to change us from within by His Spirit.
God do represent our true spiritual selves in His words we are sinners who need Gods saving Grace.
We must stop confusing the Christian religion with white people this is Jewish history not Eroupean, we see people just as in Islam religion extremist who go to far, and so we have people like the kkk who think that what they do is in the name of God, but God will Judge these people into everlasting punishment.
There is no source of peace, wisdom or POWER therein and now not without God For God is the only source of peace no matter how hard man try to get along and have peace without God man cannot, and this is why God in his words wants us to live with love, and peace to everyone not in the flesh for we will fail,  but by his spirit once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.
We as black people must stop following false religions which is idolitry, and look to the one true God who created us we hate white people which is not right, but yet we believe there lies when it comes to science and evolution. When it comes to humans we did not evolve, but was created by an Almighty God open your eyes and hearts to see the truth and come out from amoung lies blessed is the Lords name forever therein is our hope and glory.

Africans can believe whatever they want, be it Christianity or Islam or Judaism that the white men imposed on us. For my part I prefer to be more in tuned to Nature what modern day people call paganism. I'm not death nor blind, I'm a human being part of a social system that deprives its components higher wisdom and harmony. If we keep our heads in the sand and ignore and fail to open our minds to knowledge to see more clearly, we will forever be sitting like a lump on a log in a state of denial, while Caucasians continue to push our heritage further down in the mud. I could go on and on, however I quit right here. Fulfill your missionary agenda, for this thread has indeed turned into a pro-Christian propaganda. PEACE.


Bantu Kelani.
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We should first show solidarity with each other. We are Africans. We are black. Our first priority is ourselves.
Tracey
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Rootsie.com


« Reply #13 on: January 04, 2004, 11:23:59 AM »

Something I found worth considering  was the crucial point that came from the writings of John Henrik Clarke:

Quote
In my research for this paper, I re-read a
dissertation on religion written by an African
attending Syracuse University. His dissertation
detailed why African religions never became world
religions. He said they had no pews, no collection
plates, no temples, no missionaries, everything was
free. He asked the question: How can such a religion
become a world religion? Nobody was exploiting
anybody. Priests were free. The community paid the
priest so they did not have to pass the hat. The
community brings the priest his food and makes his
clothes. [i]He pointed out that all of the elements that
we call Christianity came out of Africa. All of the
symbols of Christianity came out of Africa. He
explained that when the people from Israel came into
Africa, they had no clear religion, no law and no
language, when they left they had all three.[/
i] His
dissertation was not well received by Syracuse
University and he was thrown out, in 1933.


Indeed...and is still is not well recieved..as it is interesting to observe how many wish to stake claim to, but deny the root of, the very ancient foundations that freely contributed to, what most of these major religions were built on.
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ILovGod
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« Reply #14 on: January 05, 2004, 05:09:30 PM »

Tracey, that might of been a nice research paper, but the Isrealites had the 10 commandments given to them right after they came out of Egypt, and they knew of the one true God before they were in slavery in Egypt. It was in Africa (Egypt)that they had all those false Gods. And we must remember as black men and women that it was our own people in Africa who sold their own black people into slavery.
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