Religion Directory

* Millennium Pages Ethiopians & Rastafari Aster Sellassie, Millennium Ed. "THIS, THEN IS THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE. WHERE ARE WE TO LOOK FOR OUR SURVIVAL, FOR THE ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS WHICH HAVE NEVER BEFORE BEEN POSED? WE MUST LOOK FIRST TO ALMIGHTY GOD, WHO HAS RAISED MAN ABOVE THE ANIMALS AND ENDOWED HIM WITH INTELLIGENCE AND REASON. WE MUST PUT OUR FAITH IN HIM, THAT HE WILL NOT DESSERT US OR PERMIT US TO DESTROY HUMANITY WHICH HE CREATED IN HIS IMAGE. AND WE MUST LOOK INTO OURSELVES, INTO THE DEPTHS OF OUR SOULS. WE MUST BECOME SOMETHING WE HAVE NEVER BEEN AND FOR WHICH OUR EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT HAVE ILL PREPARED US. WE MUST BECOME BIGGER THAN WE HAVE EVER BEEN; MORE COURAGEOUS, GREATER IN SPIRIT, LARGER IN OUTLOOK. WE MUST BECOME MEMBERS OF A NEW RACE, OVERCOMING PETTY PREJUDICE, OWING OUR ULTIMATE ALLEGIANCE NOT TO NATIONS HOWEVER, TO OUR FELLOW MEN WITHIN THE HUMAN COMMUNITY." -THE WORDS OF H.I.M., THE FIRST HAILE SELLASSIE KING OF KINGS OF ETHIOPIA

Russian writer Dostoevsky was a radical thinker. The second half of the 19th century was the time of introduction of marxism and socialism in Russia. A revolutionary in his youth Dostoevsky was sentenced to die and pardoned at the last moment. After seven years in Siberia he came back to Moscow as a conservative man. He understood that the new ideas go beyond destruction of monarchy. There were several Russian intellectuals who saw that the popular social ideals were leading to the destruction of Russian culture.
I do not like the term "religion" -- I rather use the old word "God"...
Dostoevsky was one who wrote that in order for a nation to live, it has to have its own national God. According to him, a Russian wasn't just a Christian speaking Russia and living in Russia. He saw it deeper that the issue of citizenship, it has to be Russian Orthodox Church and nothing else.
Of course the uniqueness of Ethiopian Orthodoxy can be seen in anecdotal light, when the diffirence in understanding the nature of God led to centuries of wars. Why can't Ethiopia be multicultural, multinational and multireligious country? Why would they in past insist that in order to be Ethiopian one had to be a Christian?
There is a difference between a country and a nation. A country is about citizenship and principles of statehood, nation is about culture. To be agree on civic and legal principles isn't enough even to cover the zone of so much misunderstood today ethnicity. The Greak called it "ethos" -- something which goes beyond citizenship. The beliefs separated them from the barbarians.
Modern mind can't tolerate unequality. We are in priciple against the idea of "chosen" people. We think that any strong conviction is a cause of separation and dispute. We point at the Balkans and at ourselves as a proof that "religious moderacy" is a model for peace and prosperity. We're easealy throwing in this word "Genocid," forgetting that the Nazi Party made the Jewish question into a centro-piece of their politics because of their weak national idea. They tried to get what they didn't have -- the ethos, which Jews maintained throughout centuries. "Genohe Balkans and at ourselves as a proof that "religious moderacy" is a model for peace and prosperity. We're easealy throwing in this word "Genocid," forgetting that the Nazi Party made the Jewish question into a centro-piece of their politics because of their weak national idea. They tried to get what they didn't have -- the ethos, which Jews maintained throughout centuries. "Genocid" is not the sign of a strong ethos, on the contrary, it's dying ethos. After the collapse of the new marxist "ethnicy" Serbs are left without a cultural identity. You can see that at their rallies the mob wave the flags, we restore to "patriotism" at the time of crisis, but you won't see much of religious presence. They lost it. Their nationalism is political, not cultural. In fact, the analysis of the post-Soviet era gets it wrong -- the new nationalism is only a power struggle method.
Nietzsche read Dostoevsky before he wrote "God is dead." The national God dies first, and in Dostoevsky's mind your personal God is impossible without your ancestrial God.
We debate it, the fields of privacy and the public place of religion. America is a kingdom of majority; even if at some point it was the Christian country, it was because of the leading majority.
Times are changing and the changes are vote in.
Dostoevsky saw the end of monarchy and Russia, because he saw the dead of the Russian God. Ethiopian intelligencia left the church in the fifties -- twenty years later came the revolution.
anatoly.org

@2000 hos

(c)2006 * Film-North * webmaster