Questions of Zapata

I thought we can revisit these questions from old and see what new answers theists have come up with.

And then a quote.

Theologians can persuade themselves of anything….. Anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything just give him time to rationalise it.

Job, A comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein

Random pictures

A project I did in 2013

Yours truly stretching by the lake after running on water

The less said the better

Some personal news

I finished my studies.

My university is holding a virtual graduation thanks to covid. The link is Here

here is something I like

even if you don’t read the whole blog, this alone I find is quite good

In conversation with a believer

To be clear, I do respect anyone who does believe with integrity. Who does treat others with respect, those who do not share into the same belief. Or those who do not want to believe at all in any form of a higher being. Because, without that principle in place, the believer will not receive the respect he or she is craving.

I do not believe in any higher being or deity, nor do I adhere to any mystical belief system.

For me, the adherence to a “believe” is an absolute private matter! And in my opinion, has nothing to do with any religious affiliations. As I understand if a person needs the embrace of a religious group, there must be doubts about the validity of the held beliefs. If one is convinced that there is a deity in existence, then there is no need for spiritual support of that conviction. One is free to worship on one’s terms!

To me, a belief is personal, and like our imagination, are emotional responses of the individual. As far as I can count, there are currently around eight billion individual emotional responses possible on this planet.

As an atheist, I take responsibility for my entire existence!(Here is where we say AMEN-my own) I alone must account for my actions and my thoughts, including my demise into nothingness. For me, life is a one-off experience, and I feel lucky to have that experience. There is no one to blame for my bad choices, but myself. I am aware and respectful to the fact that I am part of a universal cycle; consequently, I treat my life with the utmost reverence. Of course, we all make mistakes and fail in our quest on occasion. There may be one religion I would call myself an adherent to, and that is the religion of universal love!

I am suspicious of people who are in need to convince others of the righteousness of their beliefs. To me, it proves they lack convictions!

On a more general note, if we human beings had decided a long time ago to adhere only to one single belief system, we would have died out by now! Because only through the challenges and variety of conflicting ideas has the human mind progressed to this day.

imagine what would become of religion

if lies were disallowed.

We all know a good lie in the course of religion is acceptable even to god. I mean, Luther says it. Eusebius alludes to it. Even Paul agrees to doing it.

so friends, start your religion and use lies if you must as long as the cause is right.

and remember that a loving god sends no one to hell. Should you find yourself in the pit, you chose it willingly. It says so in the scriptures.

we are all dying

that’s the good news.

the bad news is we don’t want to die, not just yet and we need ways to live while not bogged down by the fear of our own mortality.

this paper on how not to fear death makes for good reading on a bright sunny day like today.

have a fearless day, won’t you.

happy week everyone

Africa is a dark continent

But we got candles and fireflies at night so at least we can still see ourselves in the dark

My evidence based weight loss program

Now before I share my very secret ingredient for weight loss free of charge I have noticed that many fat people ( or to be PC- body positive) behave like most governments when faced with urban transport problems. The governments keep widening roads in the hope that this will make the problem away. Fat people just add another hole to the belt or buy bigger clothes.

I have been fat. And what I don’t like whenever I am so fat is how I struggle to do simple things like walking, running or just sitting down for long. These regular things become work. And the worst is trying to ride uphill. I begin to ask myself if I made the right life choices.

Now, i have seen people adopt strange diets to lose weight. Once I saw some people resort to spinach juice ( smoothie), no eating after a certain hour and many other silly things. I call them silly because while they might work for a month, they are not sustainable. Secret #1: don’t adopt a diet that you can’t sustain. It is stupid thing to do.

Others adopt an exercise regime that is so great from an observer point of view but do it for a week only. Secret #2: adopt a regime that fits within your schedule or that doesn’t need you to adjust your schedule drastically or you will not do it.

Good and bad foods. Now my friends, for me, there is only food I like and that I don’t like. Secret #3: it is the portions and quality of that food that matters most and not the food itself.

I would have continued with this list but I can see food on the table and I would want it to be cold before I eat it.

Have a good weekend friends.

Thoughts out of season

But are they really?

I try to not comment on the black lives matter protests around the world not because they don’t concern me but the simply because the African American is far removed from my immediate environment and while I have read a bit on the matter, I wouldn’t claim to know enough to speak authoritatively on it. But I can comment on my fellow countrymen and women staging a BLM protest.

Now, if you are a visitor to this blog, just know I live somewhere in Africa and for those whose education isn’t good enough, africa can as well be a country but that is not important. What bothers me about these protests done in solidarity with AAs is that we need them daily in almost all African countries. Most governments treat us like dirt. And I can mention the many ways this happens but I don’t want to bore you.

So then to what I keep asking myself, what do my brothers intend to achieve? Could we first protest our governments failure to treat us with dignity? I mean given that we are all black and all plus we are not trying to drown ourselves in the Mediterranean? I think it is only when our governments treat us do we have some space to demonstrate with dignity about the case of the AAs or any other oppressed group like NAs.

Or maybe i miss the whole point?

Some theological aside

I am reading this interesting novel titled job, a comedy of justice. You can see it on the goodreads sidebar of this blog. In some place he writes

Many people seem to believe that the ten commandments forbid lying. Not at all. The prohibition is against bearing false witness against your neighbour- a specific, limited, and despicable sort of lie. But there is no biblical rule forbidding simple untruth. Many theologians believe that no human social organization could stand up under the strain of absolute honesty. If you think their misgivings are unfounded, try telling your friends the ungarnished truth about what you think of their offspring- if you dare risk it.

Job, A comedy of justice