mkmyers45: I technical see the zealous as a result of age-long brainwashing, afterall they were forced to accept christainity and islam.

emöfine2:


Well initially to an extent yes they were forced but today it’s largely voluntary. Could the forced converts exhibit much enthusiasm to an intruding faith as opposed to the voluntary converts?

Of course forcing much of the natives in the beginning to adopt this belief has set a climate and for the subsequent generation it has become relatively standard to be a Christian.

The African Christians I know are rather grateful for the missionaries that arrived on the continent. Because in their mind without these intruders we would have forever been a lost people. Never mind the entry in which this faith was carted in and the things we have lost as a continent because of this agent but what does that matter if we have gained the infallible “truth”, right.

What I don’t understand is if most of the Europeans at the time could not even consider Africans as equal or "love thy neighbours" why would such a people be willing to share the alleged truth with “animals” and “savages”?

Why would anyone share any “truth” with another that they do not hold in high regard and have subjected to degradation?

And Africans are grateful for being allowed access to the “truth” despite not being deemed fit or worthy enough to congregate with the Europeans once upon a time. So grateful they are now as reverse missionaries Africans stand in the streets of London spreading the good news to the nation responsible for our “salvation”.

Today they pray to god the loudest. Worship god the strongest. Evangelize the hardest. Whilst Christianity has waxed stronger in our ailing continent it has faded in significance in affluent Europe.

I know that Africans rightly or wrongly take matters concerning spirituality very seriously but it does still make me wonder why they are more committed to the course than the countries that introduced “the way, the truth and the light” to our continent. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?

emöfine2:


Well initially to an extent yes they were forced but today it’s largely voluntary. Could the forced converts exhibit much enthusiasm to an intruding faith as opposed to the voluntary converts?

Of course forcing much of the natives in the beginning to adopt this belief has set a climate and for the subsequent generation it has become relatively standard to be a Christian.

The African Christians I know are rather grateful for the missionaries that arrived on the continent. Because in their mind without these intruders we would have forever been a lost people. Never mind the entry in which this faith was carted in and the things we have lost as a continent because of this agent but what does that matter if we have gained the infallible “truth”, right.

What I don’t understand is if most of the Europeans at the time could not even consider Africans as equal or "love thy neighbours" why would such a people be willing to share the alleged truth with “animals” and “savages”?

Why would anyone share any “truth” with another that they do not hold in high regard and have subjected to degradation?

And Africans are grateful for being allowed access to the “truth” despite not being deemed fit or worthy enough to congregate with the Europeans once upon a time. So grateful they are now as reverse missionaries Africans stand in the streets of London spreading the good news to the nation responsible for our “salvation”.

Today they pray to god the loudest. Worship god the strongest. Evangelize the hardest. Whilst Christianity has waxed stronger in our ailing continent it has faded in significance in affluent Europe.

I know that Africans rightly or wrongly take matters concerning spirituality very seriously but it does still make me wonder why they are more committed to the course than the countries that introduced “the way, the truth and the light” to our continent. Stockholm syndrome perhaps?

LoJ: Hello Plaetton!

I've appreciated your post. Are you an atheist?

best regards!

LoJ

plaetton: I presently alarmed at the (pretended) religiousity of Africans simply because of mentally debilating effects and the exploitation that go hand in hand with religious zealotary

However,on closer observation, I have seen that Nigerians are not really religious in the true sense of the word. There is a big knowledge gap between ordinary Africans and the rest of the world.I want to go out on limb here to guesstimate that an overwhelming majority of African do not have the faintest clue about how the world works. There is a big gag, no, big hole, in scientific knowledge, there is a bigger gap in historical knowledge, and yet even a bigger gap in the basic philosophical constructs upon which civilisations are built and maintained.

plaetton:

Yes , you might call me an athiest because I have found, from my youth, that the basic constucts of religious belief do not measure up to rational common sense.I found in my personal research on religion that the idea of god is constantly evolving in the same way the minds of men are constantly evolving.In Nigeria and in much of Africa, the idea of god is a money/prosperity/ wealth centered idea simply because those are the things that majority of us lack very much, and so and so forth. When powerful nations go to war to take the resources of other nations, they invoke the name of their god to lead them while the invaded less powerful nations also invoke the name of god to protect and defend them.
So it is all in the mind. It is created in the mind and lives in the mind of the creator.

claremont: If we investigate very well, I would argue that it is safe to assume that religious passion amongst a population directly correlates with poverty, corruption, crime, oppression of females, homophobia, and geni-tal mutilation. What this means is that, the more religious a country is, the more pervasive these crimes are. Nigeria can be used as a perfect case study, we have often been described as the most religious nation on earth; yet, it goes without saying that religion has been a curse to us.

I would also argue that there is a reason why the European nations have since done away with religion; it is because they know that religion hampers economic and intellectual progress.

mazaje: . . .We believe too much in magic. . .

musKeeto:
Thank you, Sir. You expressed clearly what's been on my mind for several days now. I' like to ask a question though; do you think there's hope for the Nigerian in particular and the black race in general?

mkmyers45: They were vaguely spiritual from the on-set so i guess we can blame poverty(intellectual and monetary) and stockholm syndrome. the is a diffrent with ethusiasm and irrational eccentricity.

emöfine2: Why are African Christians more zealous than the European nations that converted us?

African Christians have invested wholly in an imported belief and are so much devoted to this foreign faith it surpasses the piety of the European nations that introduced this belief system to our continent. Even the European Christians that still regard this faith are tame in comparison to African Christians.

African Christians are perhaps the most zealous Christians I’ve ever encountered. Whilst many Europeans have now moved on and discarded the faith they once shared with a fraction of the globe, Africans still remain largely dedicated to this borrowed belief.

Some Africans have now even assumed the former role of the early European evangelists and witness for Christ here in Europe to the very countries that imposed this faith on us.

Why are African Christians more passionate about this imported faith than the very nations that foisted this belief on us?

Jenwitemi: It is not only religion, my dear. Check out Africans
attitude towards everything else that comes from the white race apart from their religions; LANGUAGE, way of life, culture, etc. We accept everything that comes from the white race as superior without thinking deeply about it first. This problem goes way beyond just religious zealotry of Africans.

plaetton:

excellent one and something to deeply reflect upon. Another one to reflect upon is why western countries do not teach bilbe knowledge in their public schools. The reason is quite simple. They cannot risk the damage that such toxic material could do their young who are their future. The have been there and they have done all that in previous eras. We should learn from them.

mazaje:

Once there is life there is hope, but we have a VERY LONG way to go my brother. . .What we need to do as Africans is to acknowledge that we have a very big problem as a people,then try to modify our beliefs and traditions, you can not move forward in the 21st century with a 1st, 2nd or 10th century mindset. We need to take education very seriously and accept the new knowledge it gives or points to. . .No need fighting it or discarding new knowledge even if it contradicts what we "know" to be true. We seriously need to be skeptical and not accept everything at face value.We need to stop formulating lies to explain that which we do not know or understand . . .Then the issue of irrational fear, Africans are too FEARFUL, we fear too much. . .We are always fearful of imaginary beings trying to harm us. . .If a white european sees fire coming out from a tree(an unusual phenomena), he will wait for the fire to stop coming out from the tree, then go and conduct an investigation. He will want to know the source of the fire, the mechanism it uses to flow out from the tree and the tempreture of the fire etc because its not a normal phenomena. But if it is an African,hmmmm. . . He/she will run as far as he/she can from the tree without looking back while going about spreading he said, she said mythical tales about the tree. . .

Back in the days when I was conducting my personal research on the efficacy of juju, the existence of witches, wizards and their claims, 2 of my friends who got to know about it( these guys are college educated from UK and have lived there for many years) really thought I was crazy and demonic, because of the total lack of fear I displayed. . .They just felt it was abnormal, they personally felt I was in some kind of cult or something. . .They just thought I was insane. We need to drop all these fear, we also need to modify our beliefs and culture in order to move forward as a people. . .