Thoughts of a Native Son III

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• Nameless 11 years ago

  THIS IS A VERY THOUGHT TO WRITE ON BUT
  PLEASE WRITE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF NOT TO IMPRESS OTHERS

  THIS IS A VERY THOUGHT TO WRITE ON BUT
  PLEASE WRITE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF NOT TO IMPRESS OTHERS

  reply
• Dungeon Master 11 years ago

  This is an interesting topic for public discussion. While your point is saliently made as far as the elastic limit of your legal trade would allow, if you will, I still take issue with your tacit and overt ridicule of those w ...
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  This is an interesting topic for public discussion. While your point is saliently made as far as the elastic limit of your legal trade would allow, if you will, I still take issue with your tacit and overt ridicule of those who believe in such things as witchcraft. If I may infer from your write-up, both here and elsewhere, your world is defined by everything to which your physical senses are amenable.
  
  To you, witchcraft and its derivatives are ridiculous because they do not jibe with your understanding of the physical world. Remember that it was not long ago when man thought it was ridiculous for the earth to revolve around the sun. It was not long ago when it was thought ridiculous that the earth is round. Despite our understanding of the physical world, which has enabled us to travel to outer space, still we can’t explain what makes planes and ships disappear in the Bermuda Triangle. You know where I am going with this: What is considered ridiculous today may not be so ridiculous tomorrow.
  
  You referenced America to make the point that if witchcraft were real, it would be in the American consciousness and be part of the American society like ours. Perhaps you should consider talking to Americans from the “deep south.” And what is more, religion is pervasive here in America. If Americans have affinity for religion, which falls within the spectrum of “superstition,” then Americans, by extrapolation, are ridiculous as well. And if you think others are ridiculous because you “know and understand” a lot more about the physical world, tell us—or better yet ask any reputable theoretical physicist/scientist if he or she knows definitively—where gravity comes from.
  
  The world is infinitely more complex than what your underdeveloped senses can appreciate. So don’t banish others to the island of utter ridiculousness based on the suffocating narrow-mindedness of your three-dimensional world.

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  What kind of reasoning is this?
  
  "The world is infinitely more complex than what your underdeveloped senses can appreciate. So don’t banish others to the island of utter ridiculousness based on the suffocating narrow-mind ...
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  What kind of reasoning is this?
  
  "The world is infinitely more complex than what your underdeveloped senses can appreciate. So don’t banish others to the island of utter ridiculousness based on the suffocating narrow-mindedness of your three-dimensional world."
  
  Now, no one denies that it is a complex world and knowledge about that is changing constantly with new scientific discoveries, with remarks such as the text books must be re-written. Science therefore doesn't dabble in Absolute Truths which last forever beyond the canons of logic. Unchanging Absolute Truths are in the arena of purveyors of superstitious beliefs. You have to read a bit about Null Hypothesis and the Alternative Hypothesis and learn that the acceptance of the former doesn't constitute affirmation of the "truth", blah, blah, blah!
  
  But whose senses are "underdeveloped"? Critics, who through study, point out that the world is not like what the superstitious folk claim it is like, or the latter who stick to the wrong notions about the world, from its creation to changes occurring in it? Who appreciate more the complexity of the physical world: the scientists or the superstitious?
  
  When Galileo looked through his telescope and saw millions of stars, the religious inquisitors (who, btw, comprised the top echelon of the Catholic clergy and Professors of learning) looked through the same telescope and saw trickery Galileo was perpetrating on them and the Catholic Church and threatened him with the rack to recant and tell them how he managed to mold such a glass with such images in it! Since he could prove that he indulged in a scam, he thought it wise to recant rather than face the rack. Copernicus was luckier, thanks to a powerful German prince to protect him from the claws of the inquisitors. Whose vision was blinkard then? Who were narrow-minded?
  
  Of course, he also saw a spherical earth revolving around the sun, not the other way round, which was the prevailing hellenistic view of the earth and the universe until suppressed by Christianity. The Catholic Church only admitted that Galileo was right in the mid-1980s, but with a clause which interprets that the church was right too! Who has been suffocating under narrow-mindedness of their uni-dimensional world, in which theirs is the only truth even when proven patently false??? Oh! Bcos they have highly developed senses which can perceive spirits, goblins, djinns, dwarfs, witches, etc., which the like of us can't perceive cos our cosmogony and cosmology have evolved beyond the realms of the substantive rationality world of the believers in superstitious beliefs?
  
  Andy-K

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  Since he could NOT prove that he indulged in a scam,.....

  Since he could NOT prove that he indulged in a scam,.....

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• Dungeon Master 11 years ago

  Me read a bit about the null and alternative hypotheses? Do you know anything about my educational background, Andy?
  
  You have written nothing that I do not know already. In fact, your statement below encapsulates the gist ...
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  Me read a bit about the null and alternative hypotheses? Do you know anything about my educational background, Andy?
  
  You have written nothing that I do not know already. In fact, your statement below encapsulates the gist of my argument: “Now, no one denies that it is a complex world and knowledge about that is changing constantly with new scientific discoveries, with remarks such as the text books must be re-written.”
  
  I said the same thing, though worded differently, “What is ridiculous today may not be so ridiculous tomorrow.”
  
  And that is my point. Do you have any understanding of the prevailing theories of the different dimensions there may be and what may be contained in them?
  
  You are constrained by your three-dimensional, warped mindset to which you pine to subject the rest of us. Get a grip and update your knowledge of science. Nothing you have written here is new to me, buddy.

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• Nameless 11 years ago

  THIS IS A VERY GOOD THOUGHT TO WRITE ON, BUT PLEASE WRITE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF NOT TO IMPRESS OTHERS

  THIS IS A VERY GOOD THOUGHT TO WRITE ON, BUT PLEASE WRITE TO EXPRESS YOURSELF NOT TO IMPRESS OTHERS

  reply
• KOLA, INSIDE LONDON. 11 years ago

  You did posit it well as many Ghanaians these days lay all their thinking and hopes on superstition. Good example is news about the drowning of a Ghanaian hip-life artist, Castro.
  
  But this is an intelligently written artic ...
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  You did posit it well as many Ghanaians these days lay all their thinking and hopes on superstition. Good example is news about the drowning of a Ghanaian hip-life artist, Castro.
  
  But this is an intelligently written article and a must read.

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• Kwadwo 11 years ago

  I have two family members living here in the US who refused to attend their mother's funeral. One has always been a drunk and believes his mother as the cause
  of his alcoholism. The other has no children, and blames the moth ...
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  I have two family members living here in the US who refused to attend their mother's funeral. One has always been a drunk and believes his mother as the cause
  of his alcoholism. The other has no children, and blames the mother albeit she had several back alley abortions while in secondary school.
  Their mother died of cancer, and to them, that was her punishment for being a witch.They neither called nor offered any financial support while their mother was going through treatment at the Swedish medical center. Thankfully, she had another child also in the US, who paid all the bills and made her comfortable before she passed away. Our investigation reveals that a certain pastor or prophet instilled such balderdash in their psyche. This woman was a widow, but supported these two idiots in two of the finest secondary schools. Sadly, this ingratitude was her reward. This is how superstition has reached in Ghana. So Dungeon Master, SAS has a point here.

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• KOLA, INSIDE LONDON. 11 years ago

  Novice Pastors have no clue about what actually was wrong with these two boys, one being a drunkard and the other barren.
  
  The problem is not the mother. Never at all was the problem from the Mother.Spirits exit but everyon ...
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  Novice Pastors have no clue about what actually was wrong with these two boys, one being a drunkard and the other barren.
  
  The problem is not the mother. Never at all was the problem from the Mother.Spirits exit but everyone has a different one which manifest at some point in time.It was for this reason that when Jesus was born, he had to be baptised for a new spirit, CHRIST so whoever has Christ will have salvation.
  
  The issue here is that everyone born into this earth has a certain spirit needed to be replaced with the spirit of Christ to be saved. Even the Mother of these two also needed help.Jesus said it, he came as the BREAD of life. Even Jesus himself was Baptised and rose up with a new spirit. Spirits Exist and Scientist have proved this through Para-normal activities.

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• Dungeon Master 11 years ago

  Kwadwo,
  
  There are excesses with everything “conceived” under the sun, be it a belief in something or science. I know of scientific research works that were falsified to attain a clinical endpoint just for financial gai ...
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  Kwadwo,
  
  There are excesses with everything “conceived” under the sun, be it a belief in something or science. I know of scientific research works that were falsified to attain a clinical endpoint just for financial gain.
  
  As an example, when I was in school years ago, a landmark study published in the Lancet, the most prestigious publication in medical science, I think, informed the treatment of patients with proteinuria, using a combination of two drug classes (an ACE inhibitor and and ARB) based on their additive effect on the kidneys.
  
  Patients were treated using this model until other scientists failed to reproduce the results of the original paper, instead citing serious adverse effects with the combination therapy.
  
  The author of the original paper failed to produce specific research data when Lancet asked for them. Lancet redacted that study a few years ago when the author failed to produce the requested data.
  
  Do you know how many people who may have died as a result of the original work? This is not an isolated incident. I don’t want to belabor the discussion with tedious clinical references, but my point here is that your anecdotal references do not in any way dent the thrust of my earlier submission.
  
  How did you know if this brother and sister were wrong? Were they wrong in their judgment because of the sheer grossness of how they "mistreated" their birth mother or by virtue of the fact that you said and believe so?
  
  Their suspicions may be downright wrong, I admit that. However, I cannot say definitively that they were wrong. I don't know everything under the sun and therefore cannot say conclusively that what they suffered was not caused by their mother.

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• Manu 11 years ago

  Hehehehe.

  Hehehehe.

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• KAKABO 11 years ago

  What the writer carried across was the depth to which our generation as Ghanaians have sunk with superstition and false religion. I believe in God but I know God does not fix a depreciating currency.Human beings with brains d ...
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  What the writer carried across was the depth to which our generation as Ghanaians have sunk with superstition and false religion. I believe in God but I know God does not fix a depreciating currency.Human beings with brains do.I believe in God but I know God will not have anything to do with you if you recklessly mismanage your affairs as we are currently doing as a nation I believe in God but I know that if you do not plant and tender, you will not harvest. We as Ghanaians have now left all our responsibilities as humans beings with brains to spiritual powers. Yes I do agree with the writer, we have a lost generations to superstition and false religion.

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• Joe Manu 11 years ago

  Dr SAS' lack of understanding of the spiritual world is due to the fact that controversial and subjective lawyer is an ATHEIST.Those who don't believe that GOD exists also don't believe that SATAN exists,and of course don't b ...
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  Dr SAS' lack of understanding of the spiritual world is due to the fact that controversial and subjective lawyer is an ATHEIST.Those who don't believe that GOD exists also don't believe that SATAN exists,and of course don't believe in the spiritual world.Can DR SAS explain to us why there are numerous haunted houses in the United States which are documented by the US Government.

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• Francis Kwame Oduro. 11 years ago

  Thanks for the thought-provoking response.

  Thanks for the thought-provoking response.

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• Reason 11 years ago

  Our people are very logical in their thinking. What you call superstition is based on observation. I have come to a few conclusions of my own. For example, people like you who live in exile have disrespected their elders' tra ...
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  Our people are very logical in their thinking. What you call superstition is based on observation. I have come to a few conclusions of my own. For example, people like you who live in exile have disrespected their elders' traditions and their affinity for the white man's culture has landed them in a white man's land, or that people who leave their wives for a second wife lose a child to psychological disarray or death,So you have to repent.

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• Reason 11 years ago

  Here is another one, men who see their wives naked bodies hate them.

  Here is another one, men who see their wives naked bodies hate them.

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• Daniel K. Pryce, Ph.D. 11 years ago

  Dearest Sammy,
  
  Let me begin by noting that I love your prose! You represent the best among us and I tip my hat to you.
  
  Notwithstanding the beautiful prose, your propensity to conflate intellectualism, logic, and the ca ...
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  Dearest Sammy,
  
  Let me begin by noting that I love your prose! You represent the best among us and I tip my hat to you.
  
  Notwithstanding the beautiful prose, your propensity to conflate intellectualism, logic, and the capacity to solve everyday problems is a bit worrisome.
  
  In addition, some of your readers are aware that you have openly rejected the obvious chasm that delineates the esoteric/metaphysical from the corporeal, assuming, among other things, that those who hold an opposing view are people with stunted intellectual capacities.
  
  I cannot definitively say who or what was responsible for your client's friend's calamities, but I encourage you to pause for a moment and realize that there are millions of intellectuals who believe in a living God. Even if you do not share their collective view of the supernatural, your propensity to mock them makes you appear as a person adorned in the habiliments of hubris, although I, Daniel Pryce, will defend you any day, and at any time, that you are a modest person!
  
  Ultimately, I believe that your open dance with the tenets of agnosticism and atheism undergirds your reasoning when it comes to things that cannot be seen with the naked eye -- but, please, try and respect those who hold differing opinions about otherworldly issues.

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 11 years ago

  First, let me say that no respect whatsoever should be shown to the purveyors of superstition when critising their superstition. It must be done robustly and in a no holds barred manner, as they don't give quarters themselves ...
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  First, let me say that no respect whatsoever should be shown to the purveyors of superstition when critising their superstition. It must be done robustly and in a no holds barred manner, as they don't give quarters themselves in propagating their debilating superstitious stranglehold and "boko haraming" others. We can tolerate them as persons but we can't show tolerance in exposing, denouncing and discrediting their false beliefs. That's the surest way of convincing others to follow our versions of the truth and knowledge system about the cosmos, as opposed to the ecclesiastical source of knowledge which the pope, the bishops, the pastors, babalawos, the prophets, the fakirs, the mallams, mediums, and the lot profess.
  
  I take this opportunity to commend Dr SAS for taking the bull by the horns and contributing to the debate some of us had started since the '90s. The intellectual bankruptcy afflicting us CAN ONLY BE ERADICATED BY CONFRONTING AND STEMMING THE IGNORANCE AND SUPERSTITION that engender them.
  
  Andy-K

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• Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 11 years ago

  Andy, you come to the table too late.
  Where have you been?
  I am seething with disbelief that the problems I recounted are now substantially evidenced by the frozen-headed logic of some "scholars" here.
  But I had faith tha ...
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  Andy, you come to the table too late.
  Where have you been?
  I am seething with disbelief that the problems I recounted are now substantially evidenced by the frozen-headed logic of some "scholars" here.
  But I had faith that you will appear to set the perspectives right. You Never fail!
  Thanks.

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• Francis Kwame Oduro. 11 years ago

  There is overwhelming evidence that Dr SAS is one of the worst writers on this forum,in that all his articles lack objectivity and candour.He is as biased and hateful as Ahoofe and Justice Sarpong.It is obvious that all those ...
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  There is overwhelming evidence that Dr SAS is one of the worst writers on this forum,in that all his articles lack objectivity and candour.He is as biased and hateful as Ahoofe and Justice Sarpong.It is obvious that all those who are showering praises on DR SAS are being sarcastic.

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