Was/is Polytheism the cause of our ''failure'' as a peoples?

Polytheistic - Worshiping or believing in more than one god.

Monotheistic - Believing that there is only one god.

Had this all thought out last night but it seems to have escaped me after a bad nights sleep and work related stress. Have been reading up on Hebrew, ''spirituality'' over that of the Egyptians for a while and have picked up on their interpretation of things, rather than believe that Moses was an exiled Egyptian priest as it were...

Exodus chapter 20;

And God spoke all these words, saying: {S}

2. I am the LORD thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

ג לֹא-תַעֲשֶׂה לְךָ פֶסֶל, וְכָל-תְּמוּנָה, אֲשֶׁר בַּשָּׁמַיִם מִמַּעַל, וַאֲשֶׁר בָּאָרֶץ מִתָּחַת--וַאֲשֶׁר בַּמַּיִם, מִתַּחַת לָאָרֶץ. 3 Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth;ד לֹא-תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה לָהֶם, וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם: כִּי אָנֹכִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֵל קַנָּא--פֹּקֵד עֲו*ֹן אָבֹת עַל-בָּנִים עַל-שִׁלֵּשִׁים וְעַל-רִבֵּעִים, לְשֹׂנְאָי.

4 thou shalt not bow down unto them, nor serve them; for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me;

ה וְעֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד, לַאֲלָפִים--לְאֹהֲבַי, וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְו*ֹתָי. {ס} 5 and showing mercy unto the thousandth generation of them that love Me and keep My commandments. {S}

ו לֹא תִשָּׂא אֶת-שֵׁם-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לַשָּׁוְא: כִּי לֹא יְנַקֶּה יְהוָה, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-יִשָּׂא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ לַשָּׁוְא. {פ} 6 Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. {P}

ז זָכוֹר אֶת-יוֹם הַשַּׁבָּת, לְקַיז וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם, מֵרָחֹק; וּמֹשֶׁה נִגַּשׁ אֶל-הָעֲרָפֶל, אֲשֶׁר-שָׁם הָאֱלֹהִים. {ס}

17 And the people stood afar off; but Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. {S}

יח וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, כֹּה תֹאמַר אֶל-בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל: אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם--כִּי מִן-הַשָּׁמַיִם, דִּבַּרְתִּי עִמָּכֶם.

18 And the LORD said unto Moses: Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel: Ye yourselves have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
יט לֹא תַעֲשׂוּן, אִתִּי: אֱלֹהֵי כֶסֶף וֵאלֹהֵי זָהָב, לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ לָכֶם.

19 Ye shall not make with Me--gods of silver, or gods of gold, ye shall not make unto you. כ מִזְבַּח אֲדָמָה, תַּעֲשֶׂה-לִּי, וְזָבַחְתָּ עָלָיו אֶת-עֹלֹתֶיךָ וְאֶת-שְׁלָמֶיךָ, אֶת-צֹאנְךָ וְאֶת-בְּקָרֶךָ; בְּכָל-הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַזְכִּיר אֶת-שְׁמִי, אָבוֹא אֵלֶיךָ וּבֵרַכְתִּיךָ.

Obvious where this is going I guess...

We as Black African peoples are the Jews, the first peoples, all other so called, ''races'' are derivative as it were so this address (if you decide to believe in its authenticity or not) is to us.

Now... was this a warning?

Was God telling us to stop making idols and images attempting to ward us away from being led astray.

Ie; To prevent us from being in a situation where we find ourselves now?

The Europeans purged themselves of their Pagans establishing christianity in its place keeping the people praying in the same direction rather than falling into conflict amongst themselves due to misunderstandings and difference in cultural opinion. Our ability to see the divine in everything, relate to various images and deities as aspects of a higher source ''has'' only served to keep us from finding common ground enough to resolve our problems.

Used to be confused hearing/reading those black scientists saying that we as Black people become addicted to substances more so than lesser melainated peoples as the melanin in our structure absorbs the toxins and accepts them as part of its system but it may as well be an analogy... we as black people seem to adapt and create cultures in which to survive, adsorbing ''toxins'' along the way. Could this be down to our polytheistic past? Having such complex belief systems that when without them we become lost, take to forming our own and are thus easily misled?

When a nation wages war on another the rally cry would be one for either king Queen, land or God but in our case we find ourselves with at least 10 - 20 of each and so only heed to calls we can relate to....

Not slating anyones beliefs obviously.

Opinions?

I think polytheism contributes to disions among us. I think this occurs even when the polytheism is limited as in the trinitarian doctrine. This is why we see virtually all of the sectarian conflicts in the world intiiated by Christians. They want it both ways. On the one hand they know there is Only One GOD. At the same time, they preach about the "Son" and the "Holy Ghost". This is division of GOD Almighty. It leads to divisions among us.

Interesting that monotheistic (Abrahimic, more specifically) faiths are far more synonymous with african suffering than say "animism", voodun, hinduism, buddism seem to be. Polytheism just seems and "feels" more African to me (an admitted athiest).

Also to comment on your point, when you believe in ONE god you tend to have less respect for other faiths making it MORE not less likely you'll be drawn into conflict with other religions. Abraham's God is a jealous and vengeful God (his own words not mine lol) and he tolerates ABSOLUTE devotion and leaves little room for anything else. This means your God is sole truth, all else is false and therefore "heathen".

While a polythiestic worshipper by definition is at ease with others praying and worhipping who they will, wether or not it's part of their own particular pantheon of Gods.

There is no question that monotheism orginates in A frica. Islam and Judaism in paricular come from Africa. Christianity is corrupted by European ideas and values not found in Africa.

That is your monotheistic God talking lol Judaism, Islam and Christianity worship the same God. That you believe the others are corrupted merely proves my point.

Monotheism may have originated in Africa but it went against a polytheistic state and I dare to say "nature" of people already there. Monotheism also emerged as a way of a pharoahe proclaiming his/her own divinity and absolute authority. That's the meat and bones. All the rest is simply sauce and trimmings.

abd, you remind me of a guy who is a so called republican...he blames everything that is bad or negative on democrats and everything good or positive on his party. quite a joke to say the least.

with you it is all christians and white people. your religion and black people (my people) can do no wrong.

your decision to condemn all other races and color condemns you abd to insanity and makes you an enemy to humanity.

if you really believe that all people came from black people then why would you destroy what comes from us? God would not allow it because all things come from Him.

i am still mystified that anyone would accept the clot of blood scenario.

you are rigth here abd, there are not three gods. There is but one and Jehovah is He. but He has manifested Himself in three aspects: Father (creation), Holy Ghost (provision) and Son (salvation). Only one God abd, like God man is triune; he is a spirit, he has a soul and he lives in a body.

When Adam disobeyed God his Spirit died (his ability to commune with God). The priesthood was set up for man to be able to here from God. Man often takes advantage of men by way of the inate aim to commune Spirituall with his creator.

At Calvary the priestman was done away with. The partician was rent into and man now has access to the Holy of Holies himself through Christ our Great High Priest who is not seated in heaven at the right hand of God making intercession for us.

One God abd, Jesus is His Son manifested in flesh to show his hatred for sin through his death on the cross.

there is more abd, that is not how the story ends.

the cause of our ''failure'' as a people has nothing to do with polytheism as we were never polytheistic -- we always practiced monotheism...

Our failure came from making the wrong decisions:

Dr. John says it best...

"...There is a need to look holistically at African history, good and bad. If African people are to be educated to face a new reality on the eve of the twenty first century, we must know about the good times as well as the bad times. We must also know that history has not made Africa and Africans an exceptional case. In the great unfolding of history, Africans have played every role from saint to buffoon and we need to learn how to live with the good as well as the bad. We need to understand the triumphs as well as the tragedies in our history. At the end of what I have been alluding to as the last of the three golden ages in Africa, we entered a period of internal and external tragedy, partly of our making, but mainly imposed on us by foreigners in search of new land, new energy and new resources. We made the terrible mistake of thinking some foreigners could settle our internal "family" disputes. Instead of settling our family disputes, the foreigner turned us, one against the other, and conquered both. This is the great mistake we made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at the end of Africa's third golden age. It is the greatest mistake we are making right now. This mistake grows out of our misinterpretation of our greatest strength which is our universal humanity.

As a people we have always been hospitable to strangers. The weakness in this noble gesture is that we have not been alert enough and suspicious enough to examine the intentions of the stranger that we have invited into our homes. All too often in our history strangers come in as guests and stay as conquerors. This is, at least in part, how and why the slave trade started. You cannot explain the slave trade and vindicate or rationalize the European participation in the slave trade by saying some Africans were in the slave trade and sold slaves to the Europeans. In some instances and in some regions, this was basically true. You cannot excuse the European slave trade by saying that slavery was practiced among the Africans before the Europeans came. In some instances and in some regions, this is also basically true. But the system of internal servitude in Africa that existed in some parts of Africa before the coming of he Europeans and the chattel slavery imposed upon Africa by the Europeans had no direct relationship, one to the other. In the African system of servitude which deserves critical analysis, families were broken up but not a single African was shipped out of Africa. In no way am I trying to say or imply that this system was good. My main point is that it was not the same as the European system. The European slave trade was a three continent industry that brought about a revolution in maritime science, international trade and a system of mercantilism that had not previously existed in world history. No Africans had this kind of international contact or were in a position to establish it at this juncture in history..."
The African Holocaust—The Slave Trade

Fine

I am going to have to tke this point by point.



What we did was adopt a European perspective on religion. One of our biggest mistakes was what Cleopatra did when she bowed down to Ceasar and Mark Anthony. This led to the European penetration of Africa and the slave trade.

As Rome imposed pagan and polytheistic values on Christianity, it began to oppress and dominate Africa. Let's not get too cute with our anakysis. It does not take a PHD to see the obvious. Religion was based on montheism. But, the Romans tricked it with the trinitarian doctrine. In other words, they corrputed religion by starting something half-way between montheism and polytheism. They called this a "triune GOD" What a joke!

So, this very idea of schism and division wwithin religion served the European well when it came time to set one African against another. This is called "divide and conquor". It is also called schism as are the schism in the church.

Quote:

As a people we have always been hospitable to strangers. The weakness in this noble gesture is that we have not been alert enough and suspicious enough to examine the intentions of the stranger that we have invited into our homes. All too often in our history strangers come in as guests and stay as conquerors.

Hospitality is one of our greatest virtues. We need not be ashamed of it. I think the good doctor is putting a weird sort of twist to this in such a way as to discourage one of our best virtues. What he should be doing is encouraging our traditional value of hospitality. At the same time. he needs to interpretate history in a way as to show us how to resist the conquoror.

Quote:

This is, at least in part, how and why the slave trade started. You cannot explain the slave trade and vindicate or rationalize the European participation in the slave trade by saying some Africans were in the slave trade and sold slaves to the Europeans. In some instances and in some regions, this was basically true. You cannot excuse the European slave trade by saying that slavery was practiced among the Africans before the Europeans came. In some instances and in some regions, this is also basically true. But the system of internal servitude in Africa that existed in some parts of Africa before the coming of he Europeans and the chattel slavery imposed upon Africa by the Europeans had no direct relationship, one to the other. In the African system of servitude which deserves critical analysis, families were broken up but not a single African was shipped out of Africa. In no way am I trying to say or imply that this system was good. My main point is that it was not the same as the European system. The European slave trade was a three continent industry that brought about a revolution in maritime science, international trade and a system of mercantilism that had not previously existed in world history. No Africans had this kind of international contact or were in a position to establish it at this juncture in history..."

[/quote]

I think this whole analysis is seriously flawed. For one thing, it is simply not true that we had no international business or relations prior to the arriavl of the Europeans. We know for a fact that Africa has always had trading relations with Asia while the Europenas were still living in caves. The Book of Genesis clearly proves this. But, apparently the good doctor is too educated to pay much attention to this very best of the historical records.

By interpretating our history from a European perspective, the good doctor disarms us in the face of our enemy. He fails to see that we can exist without Europe. That the slave trade was simply a western phenomenon. He is too blind to realize that we had trade to the east. Can anyone imagine 75% of humanity did nothing prior to the Europeans's arrival?

Van Sertima proves that Africans came to America at a time when Europenas still thought the world was flat. It is easy enough to see that Africans have always travelled to the Philipines, Japan and all of the Pacific islands and to such plcaes as Southeast Asia, India and China. When we see history from this perspective, we see that we do not need the white man. Quite the contrary, we can do much better business with the Chinese now that China is free. That's 25% of the world's population. Then there is India and Japan. They need our ability to grow and produce grain and cereal. We cannot sell this stuff to the white man. So, it makes perfect sense to do business in Asia. Thus, Asia and Africa are the keys to the future development of the entire world. Bye bye Europe.