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NONE Christian belliefs found TODAY in modern Ethiopia

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Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 1/22/2019 6:45:13 AM
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Most definitely.

But with the aforementioned in mind. I don't believe me choosing to not be Christian is REALLY going against the example of His Majesty. Of course I still follow his teachings and see the divinity within I self through HIM.

But I personally feel closer as a PanEthiopianist if you will. Give me ALL sides of the story not just the Orthodox

I'm a Panthiest Athiest.


Messenger: SunofMan Sent: 1/22/2019 10:21:58 PM
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"Pantheist atheist," hehe...i dig it.

None Christian beliefs in Ethiopia are often embedded within the lives and culture of orthodox Christians in Ethiopia today. I find myself spotting pre Christian practices often within the orthodox culture. I dont spot it as much with Ethiopian Muslims, but that may be because I'm not as aware of Islamic nuances. The reasoning below is a throw back that went off the rails, unfortunately, but if ones want to sift through, there's some real food for thought.

http://jah-rastafari.com/forum/message-view.asp?message_group=2376&start_row=1&word_search=his and her majesty&SearchType=Phrase&search_user=sunofman






Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 1/23/2019 1:44:28 PM
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I claim Athiesm as I most definately am not a follower or believer of 'THEOS' or a GrecoRoman understanding of the German word God. Hence A'theism' but Panthiest for obvious reasons as I don't limit myself to one overstanding of the divine. Particularly as a PanAfrican

I most definitely will sift through the above thread.

Give thankhs bredda. Bless up!


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 1/24/2019 5:54:18 AM
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SunofMan,

The Christian church (and especially the Roman Catholic Church) being rooted in sound business-minded practices to constantly grow membership and tithing/offering revenues often tolerated and/or encouraged the integration of "non-Christian beliefs" of the indigenous peoples in areas being subjected to colonization and proselytization.

Lest we forget the derivation of Christianity itself which accepted as given a metaphysical system derived from several already existing systems. So naturally, we see beliefs and rituals of Greco-Roman mythology being integrated, which facilitated the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Christianity was also spreading through the North African parts of the Roman Empire and into Ethiopia in the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD, but as a religion of dissent against the expanding Empire. Ironically, Christianity ended up becoming the official state religions of both (Kingdom of Ethiopia and the Roman Empire) early in the 4 century AD.

But even if you come much later to far-flung places like Spain's Philippines colony, you can see how Church officials and their friars had no problem "blending" traditional local mythologies and superstitions with Biblical teachings in order to grow the Church's membership and augment the incoming revenues. Filipinos weren't really required to ditch their old beliefs altogether, just subjugate and integrate them into Catholicism. After all, business is business (even in the religion biz), so why make things difficult and potentially cut into your revenues if a little compromise will grease the wheels?

i am not familiar with any instances in which the Islamic faith has used accommodation/integration of local, pre-existing mythologies in this same way.; however, that doesn't mean it's never occurred -- just that it doesn't appear to have been quite so common nor blatant if it did, and that i am not aware of it. Of course, the Islamic faith has no monolithic corporation analogous to that of the Vatican behind it.


Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 1/24/2019 6:05:01 AM
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Your not accounting for the number of people's who have had Christianity or Islam forced upon them out of war or extortion. These people only adopt these religions on face value/ in the public eye while keeping insidiously close to their original practices. Over generations this leads to a significantly different 'form' of the subjugating religion.

This is highlighted a few times within the original post of this thread in relation to the tribes of Ethiopia. I know it is a long read

Look at the Mouride Brotherhood of the Senegal -
Senegambia. They are 'Muslim' but have a number of their own traditional / independent cultural practices seep through into their religious ideology. They even have their own 'Messenger' Mohammed alternative in Cheikh Amadou Bamba. The end result is a very different form of traditional Islam


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 1/24/2019 6:21:02 AM
Reply

Actually, i wasn't in any way trying to account for "the number of people's who have had Christianity or Islam forced upon them out of war or extortion". I was merely describing one (not all, but one) of the reasons why (or mechanisms by which) traditional, older belief systems, mythologies and/or rituals may be found co-mingled with the practice of Christianity.
You're not citing a deficiency, but instead, another, different possible origin of such co-mingling.
Keep it cool, mon. Feels like you're loaded for bear.


Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 1/24/2019 6:32:17 AM
Reply

? But that's exactly what I just said. I don't see the problem in naming an alternative mechanism in which religion is spread to make my point

You ended your post with "I am not familiar with any instances in which the Islamic faith has used accommodation/integration of local, pre-existing mythologies"

And so I gave examples where this does happen. But as a result of religion being forced (which is what the first post is mainly about) as opposed to your mention of the churches themselves using it as a strategy to gain more followers out of choice.

My point was to simply show examples of Islam with "local pre existing mythologies integrated...."

The intention wasn't one of confrontation or even debate


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 1/24/2019 7:42:04 AM
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Actually what i wrote near the end of my post was: "i am not familiar with any instances in which the Islamic faith has used accommodation/integration of local, pre-existing mythologies IN THIS SAME WAY" [emphasis added] e.g., specifically manipulated by the top-dog church hierarchy.

It appears that what you are alluding to is a different mechanism; equally interesting though.

i apologize for misreading your intent, G.A. The first words i read in your post were : "Your not accounting for...". i reacted because i wasn't trying address the topic of people who have retained their beliefs or hybridized them with newly-imposed ones out of defiance in the face of a religious doctrine being violently forced upon them. That's a big and worthy topic in its own right. i was coming at this issue from the other direction: what the top religious authorities of imported Christianity or Islam have themselves endorsed and even collaborated in creating so that they could make their religions more attractive/palatable to converts (i.e., kind of like 'marketing schemes').

Nevertheless, pardon my abrupt response and i thank you for your information about the Mouride Brotherhood of the Senegal which is new information for me.

Since Islam is much less formally centralized than much of Christianity (if one can dare make any generalization about the ecclesiastical organizations of the myriad of Christian sects); there tends to be a tolerance of various local interpretations and manifestations of Islamic practice as long as the local imams or almami (or Ayatollah for Shi'a Muslims) concur with them.

PEACE


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 1/24/2019 9:13:35 AM
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Great thread, brothas. I'm glad this is coming up because honestly I'm pretty much in the same boat as GA. I'm an atheist in the same sense but I think the problem is that we try to force a definition of God that is Western in its basic construction. Westerns learned how to speak and read from Africa but when we use English these days we have to constantly ask each other if our words have been understood. By the same token Westerners have taken religion from Africa and misunderstood it.

Whatever I feel about the bible it's not a European book. The region it all took place in was all considered Africa at the time. But Europeans thought Africans were savage because our religions had many gods assuming that these gods were all real entities rather than symbols of the forces of nature and therefore used to teach science.

I think all religions have a grain of truth because of how much time they spend reflecting upon these questions. The problem is when one religion thinks it has all the answers. I think these religions have always contained the thoughts and feelings of people who feel there is something bigger than us, connecting us. The real problem is that we're trying to now force that thing to be a person.

In the Old Testament people get confused about how many gods there are because Genesis says Let "us" make man. We argue over semantics as if the writer was actually there and saw what happened. But what I think they felt was that there was a "force" and that it was "spirit". It wasn't, in the OT, a separate entity. The NT says God is a spirit. And there is no way the spirit of the Father isn't holy so by definition the God the Father of the bible is a holy spirit. And if he is a holy spirit then how could the same terms be used to identity and distinguish a so-called third person of a trinity?

But Haile Selassie is the power of the Trinity! So the Trinity must be true? No, the people who created that were under the influence of Christian indoctrination. That doesn't change the man. He didn't even accept the full adoration of Rastas during this time. So either he was right or both were wrong. But you can't accept doctrine on the basis of Haile Selassie because he happened to be born into a Christian family the same way Jesus happened to be born a Jew. According to Judaism Jesus is absolutely NOT the messiah. So that gave birth to Christianity the same way that followers of Haile Selassie gave birth to Rastafarianism. Feel me?

But again, going back to religions, I think there is a "spirit" but this spirit isn't a person. It is a Force. That Force can inhabit the Buddha, the avatars of Hinduism, Jesus, Mohammad, Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, and Malcom X, many of whom died from human intervention. Each religion is a thesis to which there is antithesis but few people ever bridge the gap into sythesis.

How can an atheist accept the divinity of Haile Selassie? Not by believing there is a trinity but that humans have put feeble words and semantics on this idea trying to describe a power beyond their comprehension. This power connects us and seems to be more concentrated in some of us; not that we're storing it like a battery but rather our access to it seems to be different. Without it talking to us are imagination is free to step in and say this is this and that is that. And that power helps to make others believe. But at the end of the day the power behind every religion is the same. We're the ones that are different.


Messenger: Nesta1 Sent: 1/24/2019 9:37:21 AM
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We're all looking at the same mountain; a mountain which is so gigantic, so massive, that it's ineffable -- it defies our ability to put it into words or to even hold onto the concept of it for more than a fleeting moment. So we do what people have done since the beginning of time: We use symbols. And, same as since the beginning of time, we get all caught up in arguing about whose symbol is right and whose symbol is wrong. Of course, these different symbols (or conceptualizations) are all being used to represent the same mountain....

REPRODUCED FROM A DIFFERENT THREAD:

RasTafarIWork, you write: "I think Selassie maintained the Right of revealing His Godhead to whomsoever he chose"

I&i realized long ago that JAH came for the many who were ready to receive H.I.M. You and i know, as does His Majesty, that you cannot reach a man who has already decided on the criteria he has personally established for God incarnate. It's like leading the proverbial horse to water and trying to force him to drink. If you were to try to tell such a man that His Majesty is JAH, he'll be ready for you with 10 good reasons he has (probably taken from his interpretations of the Bible) why Haile Selassie I could not be who you say he is. So why cast your pearls before swine? For the one who is ready to receive H.I.M., the ten thousand reasons that H.I.M. is JAH are already readily apparent. You can't convince a man to see something when he leans upon his own misunderstanding to the contrary. If you and i understand that, then how much better would JAH, being their Creator, understand that and not bother trying to "convince" anyone of who He is. Could you imagine the folly of H.I.M. standing before the TV cameras declaring "I am God." Why debase Himself in such a manner when He has already assured that this will be revealed to the ones who are ready to receive it?


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