“Do you understand what’s going on?”, Humans are very good at dreaming, although you’d never know it from your. Jingoistic rhetoric and puerile self-congratulatory nationalism. For as long as there been humans we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Or would He prefer His votaries to admire the real universe in all its intracacy? Though the outbreak of Cholera is confined to the capital, anybody who knows the dealings of our leaders can tell you there is not much difference in their competence. As was popularly sang by David Nester Bob Marley “emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind,” it seems the need for a new mindset in this 21. 15-16). If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do. Yet, the continent is considered one of the richest in the globe, possessing all manner of natural and human resources with huge potential for agricultural and solid mineral production. The Pan-African project is a subset of the south project and this project speaks for the Africans (Pan-Africanism, Freedom, and Justice, among others) whereas there is the north project which is a liberal project that speaks for Europeans and against the Africans. Though the manifestation of the effects of a demonstration are seen in the future, it is best we focus on other methods that ensure we as followers are hedged just as much as the leadership and in most cases ensure they suffer for the bad policies they make. As we looked deeply into each other's eyes, it was with a shared conviction that our wondrous life together was ending forever. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? HUMN303 WK3 Notes We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." This first encounter turned out to be peaceful. Members of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and other labor unions on Thursday July 24, 2014 held a demonstration in all ten regions of the country to draw government attention to what they termed worsening economic crisis. Those who possessed poorly programmed brains eventually did not live long enough to reproduce. The well-meaning contention that all ideas have equal merit seems to me little different from the disastrous contention that no ideas have any merit. At all these meetings it has become quite common to find Civil Society leaders represented. If you know a thing only qualitatively, you know it no more than vaguely. It is very obvious the followership has virtually no say in decisions taken for and on their behalf; thus, issues affecting them directly are relegated and the leaders build portfolios for themselves as long as the decisions they take are good, yet not necessarily essential at the point of implementation as far as the students are concerned. It was a phrase of hers that he had adopted “It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, and there’s this couple lying naked in bed reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more ‘numinous’ than the Resurrection. In the best of them a few decades. For Carl, what mattered most was what was true, not merely what would make us feel better. It is the same for the entire skein of causality back to the origin of the universe. ...Ever since the invention of civilization, there have been privileged classes... some groups that oppress others and that work to maintain these heirarchies of power. Whether we believe in God depends very much on what we mean by God. Chapter 24, “Gott and the Turtles” (p. 351). Nelson Mandela (1918 – 2013) Nelson Mandela had the courage to fight against the unjust system of apartheid. God must be even greater than we dreamed"? It is designed to help African States create an enabling environment for sustainable development by analyzing: (1) Democratic and Political Governance; (2) Economic Governance and Management; (3) Corporate Governance, and; (4) Socio-Economic Development. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If a marker were to be erected today, it might read, in homage to his scientific courage: “He preferred the hard truth to his dearest illusions.”. Instead they say, "No, no, no! "You're going to beat this, just as you have before when it looked hopeless." Why is it the richest continent with every kind of resource and yet the poorest by every standard? If we really are in deficit in a particular sector or production, we can have one or two trusted foreign companies come and support in meeting the needs of that sector or production. When there isn't enough food, the body has to make a decision on how to invest the limited foodstuff available to it. Would it be extreme if I say our leaders are clueless about the magnitude of problem we are talking about as far as the infection is concerned? The fact that several of our coups have been militarily engineered is very worrisome. Several. Chapter 19, “In the Valley of the Shadow” (p. 215). We vote for them to come and solve our problems for us because they told us they have the solutions. We have heard the rationales offered by the nuclear superpowers. To take a cue from the Holy Bible, a model to look at would be when the people of Israel were in bondage and it was time for them to be freed, they were not let go until their masters were plagued with a plague that really caused them pain. In the last two centuries abject slavery which was with us for thousands of years has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring worldwide revolution. Courage is a word to reflect on and to go deeper with; a word to be placed on your screensaver, refrigerator, desk or nightstand. In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. But those with a set of beliefs they profess to feel deeply about, which they have selected without an unbiased sifting through the facts and the alternatives, will feel uncomfortably challenged by searching questions. It is important to distinguish between the amount of information and the quality of that information. The neurochemistry of the brain is astonishingly busy, the circuitry of a machine more wonderful than any devised by humans. “ We make our world significant by the courage of our questions, and the depth of our answers. An openness to new possibilities and a willingness to ask hard questions are both required to advance our knowledge. On the other hand, I was grieved because these are men and women already gainfully employed, hence, sending a second indication that it is those who are not employed and are actually facing challenges that fail to turn up to make their voices heard, when in fact they are facing the worse hardships than the former. Many religions have attempted to make statues of their gods very large, and the idea, I suppose, is to make us feel small. Nearly all our problems are made by humans and can be solved by humans. The old appeals to racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist fervor are beginning not to work. Over the years, the leadership has continuously gained more authority and the followership has in the opposite case lost the powers it holds to demand answers for decisions taken for and on their behalf. Chapter 13, “Religion and Science: An Alliance” (p. 139). Whether in some sense the universe is ultimately knowable depends not only on how many natural laws there are that encompass widely divergent phenomena, but also on whether we have the openness and the intellectual capacity to understand such laws. By this notion, it will be very difficult to name just five leaders from the continent of Africa that have been successful. Religions ought to be subject to at least the same degree of skepticism as, for example, contentions about UFO visitations or Velikovskian catastrophism. The African Series I: Pan-Africanism; A Dream or Reality. Chapter 14 (p. 231, quoting George Santayana), A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward. In the deepest sense, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is a search for ourselves. It is probably best not to let our personal preferences influence the decision. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Success of such an endeavor will enable the continent to be put in the rightful place in the world. The methods and ethos of science and religion are profoundly different. Am not advocating for the kind of educational system we have been going through for the past century that has given us this kind of leadership and followership, but the kind of education that informs to transform. They have not been able to escape the ravages of the negative impact of slave trade, colonialism and neo-colonialism, debt burden, and the scourge of HIV/AIDs and other killer diseases such as ebola and most recently, the consequences of globalization and capitalism has worsened the situation. Chapter 7, “Lovers and Madmen” (p. 193). Chapter 10, “A Piece of the Sky is Missing” (p. 96), If we keep on with business as usual, the, Chapter 11, “Ambush: The Warming of the World” (p. 113). Even at this moment when anyone would be forgiven for turning away from the reality of our situation, Carl was unflinching. If there is anything to take a cue from, these same authorities allowed heaps of rubbish to be on our streets for weeks and consequently the Bubonic plague of cholera which is taking more lives than ever recorded in the history of the country. The old man made himself look hard at the Raven and saw that it was not a great bird from the sky but the work of men like himself. Chapter 22, “The Quest for Extraterrestrial Intelligence” (pp. Many interesting possibilities simply turn out to be wrong. But this was not to be. Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p. 330). and on several platforms ranging from radio, television, and blogs, in lecture halls and even in our living rooms. Not explaining science seems to me perverse. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the search for a generally acceptable cosmic context for the human species. They care only about the time they are in power. There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them. He’d be out of business if there was any competition. The long and short of this is that, our leaders cannot afford to be complacent at this time. My point is different. Keynote address at CSICOP conference (1987), as quoted in. Or do your own thing to grapple with the issue that bugs you most, but do something. And yet on the subatomic level, there is a quantization of energy and position and momentum. I’m not any more skeptical about your religious beliefs than I am about every new scientific idea I hear about. We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? The enterprise of knowledge is consistent surely with science; it should be with religion, and it is essential for the welfare of the human species. "We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. The idea that as I walk in this direction my watch goes slightly slower and I am contracted in the direction of motion and my mass has increased slightly does not correspond to everyday experience. Does food really change our perspective on things in life? But if science is a topic of general interest and concern—if both its delights and its social consequences are discussed regularly and competently in the schools, the press, and at the dinner table—we have greatly improved our prospects for learning how the world really is and for improving both it and us. James 3:5-8 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. Let’s delve deep into this kind of education in the subsequent series to follow. Chapter 8, “The Environment: Where Does Prudence Lie?” (p. 75). The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there’s little good evidence. It is farfetched to think that a country that has failed to prevent an outbreak of cholera can adequately curtail Ebola. Evolving before our eyes has been a God of the Gaps; that is, whatever it is we cannot explain lately is attributed to God. Fifty years after the first thirty-three (33) independent African states gathered in Addis Ababa to form the Organization of African Union, now the African Union, the continent is looking ahead towards the next fifty years. The entire West African region is terrorized over the alarming rate at which the Ebola infection has gone viral and exterminating lives within days after a person contracts it. There is a place with four suns in the sky — red, white, blue, and yellow; two of them are so close together that they touch, and star-stuff flows between them. I think that two values are especially important. That simply suggests that the dissatisfaction of the masses that accompanies a particular regime at its peak could likely result in an interference by the military, as was the case of Egypt in the overthrow of its elected president Mohamed Morsi in just a year after democratic rule by the military in response to popular protest by civilians, and was previously the case in our early days into independence. For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. This page was last edited on 30 October 2020, at 21:38. Those who are skeptical about carbon dioxide greenhouse warming might profitably note the massive greenhouse effect on Venus. But in asking the citizen to do so, what and how we sacrifice is much more important. Those at too great a distance may, I am well aware, mistake ignorance for perspective. As I write this piece, since the first day of the month of July 2014 when we had the “occupy flagstaff house” demonstration, there has been about ten strikes organized by different organizations and institutions in just this month. It is true the media is one channel aside the parliament through which the populace can make their voices heard, but as I said in my previous articles, the media is labeled as a platform for whining and just making government look bad, and parliament is noted for serving their interest as minority disagrees with everything suggested by the majority and vice versa, but tend to be of the same opinion only when it comes to salaries and benefits proposed for both sides. We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depths of our answers –Carl Sagan Next Stop: Japan! Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it. Worse of it all is for a board of over 20 members to have just 2 representatives from the student body of over 30 thousand population. Courage is important because "we all have to do things we don't like sometimes," says Eric, 5. Everyone is afraid of something or someone. The laws of physics suffice, without supernatural intervention. 13-14). On the other hand, the whole paradigm revolves around an institutional framework that is established to work with or without a leader. In my view, the human condition would be greatly improved if such confrontations and willingness to reject hypotheses were a regular part of our social, political, economic, religious and cultural lives. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, "This is better than we thought! Chapter 7, “Venus and Dr. Velikovsky” (p. 98). However, they must show us the worth of the taxes they receive from us. Do I agree with him? People from all nations came here to live to trade to learn, on a given day these harbours were thronged with merchants and scholars and tourists, it's probably here that the word Cosmopolitan realised its true meaning of a citizen not just of a nation but of the Cosmos, to be a citizen of the Cosmos. Chapter 17, “Gettysburg and Now” (p. 195). Liberal education for instance classifies Africans as second class human beings and conceptually, Africans are seeking to build a new consciousness in the field of education, medicine, among others. Much of human history can, I think, be described as a gradual and sometimes painful liberation from provincialism, the emerging awareness that there is more to the world than was generally believed by our ancestors. In short, a bit of a crook. How could she not? The reason that it seems counterintuitive is that is that we are not ordinarily down at the level of the very small, where quantum effects dominate. This required a plague that separated between the Israelites and the Egyptians, for several times Pharaoh was stubborn and never gave them their freedom until there was a distinction between his people and those of the Israelites. Chapter 19, “In the Valley of the Shadow” (p. 214). We are ever ready to sacrifice for our country. The price we pay for the anticipation of our future is anxiety about it. But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religious experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry. Some god or other is always fixing and poking, messing around with tradesmen’s wives, giving tablets on mountains, commanding you to mutilate your children, telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t say, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, and like that. Many scientists deeply involved in the exploration of the solar system (myself among them) were first turned in that direction by science fiction. Likewise in neurophysiology: Tentatively, the mind seems to be the expression of the hundred trillion neural connections in the brain, plus a few simple chemicals. The climatological history of our planetary neighbor, an otherwise Earthlike planet on which the surface became hot enough to melt tin or lead, is worth considering — especially by those who say that the increasing greenhouse effect on Earth will be self-correcting, that we don't really have to worry about it, or (you can see this in the publications of some groups that call themselves conservative) that the greenhouse effect is a "hoax". Thriving economies in developed states have shown that there is a close and direct linkage between development and education of the majority of their citizens. This perspective is a courageous continuation of our penchant for constructing and testing mental models of the skies; the Sun as a red-hot stone, the stars as a celestial flame, the Galaxy as the backbone of night. Case in point is when doctor’s working in public hospitals go on strike, politicians and the well to do in society can afford private hospitals, but the poor citizen lose their precious ones because they can’t afford the private hospitals. It's hard to talk about the, Chapter 1, “Billions and Billions” (p. 10; ellipsis represents elision of half a page), Chapter 1, “Billions and Billions” (p. 10). Humans are primates. 17 : The Marriage of Skepticism and Wonder. Many harebrained interpretations were also widely available, especially in weekly newspapers. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. Exploration is in our nature. I don’t find anything wrong with having foreigners come to invest in the country, but they should be regulated such that, our local manufacturers can compete comparatively. These meetings are important because a complex world requires collaboration. This vast number of worlds, the enormous scale of the universe... has not been taken into account, even superficially, in virtually no religion, and especially in no Western religions. The entire recent history of biology shows that we are, to a remarkable degree, the results of the interactions of an extremely complex array of molecules; and the aspect of biology that was once considered its holy of holies, the nature of the genetic material, has now been fundamentally understood in terms of the chemistry of its constituent nucleic acids. Natural selection has served as a kind of intellectual sieve, producing brains and intelligences increasingly competent to deal with the laws of nature. In the face of all this, many of the standard ideas of science fiction seem to me to pale by comparison. Is it a misguided leader that rose and convinced the people to ply such path or it’s a ploy by an external force that doesn’t want to see the progress of Africa? Again, in the face of massive accommodation deficit in the premier University of the country, water shortage in most of the halls of residence, no plant for electricity supply during power outages and the numerous other challenges confronting this institution. Chapter 5, “Night Walkers and Mystery Mongers: Sense and Nonsense at the End of Science” (p. 58). But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism. No one proposes that Venus's greenhouse effect derives from imprudent Venusians who burned too much coal, drove fuel-inefficient autos, and cut down their forests. Religion often sees it as a barrier to enlightenment. The universe is vast and awesome, and for the first time we are becoming a part of it. And the second objective is to reinforce successful and best practices, including identifying deficiencies in bid to address them. Every new set of discoveries raises a host of questions which we were never before wise enough even to ask. No life force, no spirit, no soul seems to be involved. It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. While the practitioners of such doctrines often wish there were no criticisms to which they are expected to reply, skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense. It is a good idea not to make up our minds prematurely on this issue. We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.
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