Are religious leaders paralysing ghanaian intellectual/creative motivation?

Sub-Saharan Africa is said to have the highest number of religious practitioners per area.We also have the highest number of man-hours spent on religion per annum.If you plot a graph of religion versus development as measured by a variable like GDP,you seem to get a negative correlation.That is,as religious practice/belief increases,development seems to fall--and vice-versa.One of my professors actually did such a study and confirmed this.
By providing a utopian vision for life,religion seems to sap peoples ability to take their destinies into their own hands.People who generally claim no religious belief,seem to have a more naturalistic and pragmatic approach to life.An approach which needless to say,is the stuff of which great science is made
Religion and science/development are not incompatible--but 60% of the population spending a quarter to half their time on religious activity,is a dangerous trend to any development effort.In Africa,the church has lost its essence as a sacred house of GOD.The church has become a social center,community-support zone,micro-finance/credit bureau,entertainment spot,fashion-parade,club for the affluent to showcase their wealth and flashy cars...etc Some churches even have politicians politicking from their pulpits
More Godliness,less church,more development...let the church say Amen!!

~**Until the lions begin to tell their own history,tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter***~

[quote=Nkrumah_Lives]what do you think?[/quote]

God alone knows God

Whenever you think about God, the thinking itself is a form made of awareness or mind, even though you claim that you are thinking about formless God. You can never think any thing, which is formless because your thinking itself is a form. The form may have some specific boundaries like a statue. The form may not have specific boundaries like air or water. But the air or water also has some regular or irregular boundaries since the air or water has certain limits. You call the space as formless object. But the space has some limitations somewhere and you do not perceive those limits. Such limits may not be perceived but certainly exist. Therefore, the concept of your formless object has some boundaries, which are either irregular or not perceived. When you think God as awareness (Chit), the awareness is mind, which is nervous energy. Energy is in the form of waves and thus cannot be formless. According to the special theory of relativity of Einstein, the space is also a form of energy because space exhibits the property of bending. In that case, the space also cannot be formless. Even if you consider the space as infinite vacuum, you are aware of the space. Such awareness itself means that space has become a form of awareness or mental energy. Therefore, strictly speaking there is no formless object in the creation. You are calling the object, which has either irregular or infinite boundaries, which are imagined, as formless. Since, such formless object also is a form in strict sense. Formless concept is impossible.

Therefore, whether you say that God created the space or God created the energy in the beginning, both statements mean the same because space is also a form of energy only. Veda said that Para Brahman created the space in the beginning (Atmana Akasah..). The Veda says again that Para Brahman created energy in the beginning (Tat Tejo..). Both the Vedic statements mean the same in terms of the latest concept of Science. However, let such space or energy be called as formless God in your language. Even to think such formless God, it becomes very very difficult for any ordinary human being. Even a scholar cannot maintain such concept in his mind for a long time. Even if you maintain such concept, such God is not the absolute God because absolute God is completely unimaginable as per Veda and Gita (Yasyaa matam…., Mamtu Veda Na…). God imagined as space or awareness (mental energy) is not the absolute the God, who is beyond space and awareness. Veda says that God created space. Veda says that God is beyond awareness. The creator is always beyond the creation. Even in the absence of the creation, the creator must exist. According to Brahma Sutras, God is the cause of this Universe as creator and is the material cause also. The pot maker is the creator of the pot. The mud is the material cause of the pot. Even in the absence of pot, the pot maker and the mud exist. Therefore, God existed even before the creation of the Universe.

The pot maker and mud exists even after the destruction of the pot. Similarly, after the destruction of the world also God must exist. Similarly God must exist before the creation of the space and after the dissolution of the space. You can never imagine the situation, which is before the creation or after dissolution of space. Your intelligence cannot cross the special dimensions and therefore cannot cross the concept of space. That means you can never imagine the God. Veda says that God alone knows God (Brahma vit Brahmaiva…).

Therefore, when you imagine God as the all-pervading space, such imagination itself is an item of creation only. Such imagination is only the incarnation of the God. When you imagine Him as space, God has entered the space and God is in the space. Similarly, if you imagine God as all pervading energy, you have imagined the energy only in which God is present. Therefore, you perceive God as space or inert energy or mental energy (awareness) and such form of God is only the incarnation of God in the form of space or inert energy or awareness. This means you can perceive only the incarnation of God and never the absolute God.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

[quote=Nkrumah_Lives]what do you think?[/quote]

God-Subjective & Objective view points

This entire Universe is objective because the Creator is the subject and the Creation is the object. Any item in the Creation is also object. The human body is the most convenient object. Through such human body only the Lord should be meditated upon and should be served. The subjective God (Creator) is beyond words, mind, intelligence, logic and imagination as said in Veda. Gita says that if one approaches the subjective God directly, he will end in misery (Avyakthahi Gatih Duhkham…). This verse in Gita means that the souls having human bodies cannot worship the subjective God directly because such worship leads only to misery. You cannot even imagine the subjective God. When the approach is subjective, the mind is destroyed as said in Gita in the above verse. Only the objective approach will give happiness because there is no difficulty in capturing the God through an object. Since you are an object, you can capture the boundaries of another object through your mind. Any object is within the four-dimensional space-time model. The subjective God is beyond the dimensions of space and time. When you try to capture the subjective God, the mind is unable to catch Him and undergoes lot of difficulties leading into strain that destroys the mind. But when you experience God through a human being you will not have any strain in capturing God who is identified with the object. When the subjective God is not at all experienced, how His characteristic sign, which is Bliss, can be experienced? You are not seeing the Sun directly and how can you enjoy the heat or light? Even if the Sun is not seen directly if an illuminated lens by Sun is seen, you are enjoying the light and heat atleast in small quantities in reality. When the Sun is completely hidden by the clouds, neither Sun nor his heat nor his light is experienced. Bliss is defined as the continuous happiness, which is infinitely intensive. You may mistake sometimes the temporary happiness also as Bliss. When you have not tasted the infinitely intensive happiness, you may misunderstand even a small shadow of the bliss (happiness) as bliss itself. Moreover, the bliss of yourself is not the highest goal. You must please the Lord and pleasing the Lord must be highest goal. Therefore, your experience of the bliss need not be necessarily the pleasure of the God. The Bliss can be obtained from materialistic things like drink etc. Only the divine knowledge followed by the divine love and bliss can give you the identity of the Lord. But once you recognized the Lord by the knowledge, love and bliss, your aim should be the service of the Lord through which the Lord must be pleased. In service you may not have the bliss or sometimes-you may have to face even lot of unhappiness. Jesus told that unless one detaches even from his life for His sake, he couldn’t be His dearest disciple. But you should feel all that unhappiness as your happiness if your unhappiness in terms of service pleases the Lord. You must have patient analysis and power of discrimination in the search of the truth. Your aim should not be the attainment of bliss but making the Lord blissful through your service and sacrifice. If this ultimate goal is realized, the soul gets the top most place in the heart of the Lord.

You have entered the heart of the Lord deeply through your proven love towards the Lord in the very first step itself. The Lord wants sincerely to hold on you in the path of the truth. The Lord does not want to use any super power in this matter because the path of the knowledge and devotion should be spontaneous, natural and real. The final result of the effort of Swami thus depends only in the power of your discrimination and on your patience to analyze in search of the truth. You will have firm faith only when the divine knowledge helps you as a fertilizer to germinate the devotion and also acts as a pesticide to remove worm like attractions and illusions of Saturn, who always tries to take away the sheep from the Lord like a wolf or a fox.

At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

Anil Antony

www.universal-spirituality.org
Universal Spirituality for World Peace
antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

I came across this and I thought it was interesting. I think there's too much emphasis on religion in our schools.

http://prempeh.org/profiles/volume24number2.html

LET US INVEST IN OUR COUNTRY.LET'S BUILD OUR BUSINESSES & INDUSTRIES (SMALL,MEDIUM,BIG). LET'S PROTECT OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. LET'S SPEAK UP! LET'S CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO.TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE GHANA A BETTER PLACE.YEN ARA Y'ASASE NE! GOD BLESS GHANA!

what religion can do ...

there are some things science has not been able and probably will not be able to solve.
It's called human behaviour, character, etc

I know 'there is too much religious activity', but it cause people to respect the law, be their brother's keeper, inspires people to be better, then we must push and encourage our people to be excellent through it.

I believe what is most important for our 'very religious people' to realise, is 'God helps those who help themselves'.

The destiny of a nation at any given time depends on the opinions (and actions) of its young men and women.

"but it cause people to respect the law, be their brother's keeper, inspires people to be better, then we must push and encourage our people to be excellent through it."

That is your own words. I will try to be objective and concise. You did not tell us what Religion really does i.e ;

- Divide peoples, families countries etc.
- Abuse of members sexually, financially, paedophilia, name them.
- False prophets, or cheap labour. Leaders who only think about fulfilling thier pockets. Well, it is currently one of the most rewarding jobs of the century.
- The use of religion to commit crimes - like Bin Laden and George Bush.
- One Bible, one Koran, too many churches on the same street.

Sorry dear, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God.

I think this question raises a lot in my mind. I wonder if there is, who(which religion) is actually giving us the right direction. Talking about christianity,it pains me that this same religion I had adored the most, was a cunning way to bring and couldn't help stop one of the worst sins of man,trading fellow men9slavery).It leaves a lot to think about. Our own religion has its own bloody part and I'm pretty sure the others have their own limitations. If there is a God, why would he allow life in one part of the world to be so easy and comforting than another part. Why would some fight obesity whilst others struggle with hunger. Why the differences in what is defined as sins. I had been told to look at people with dredlocks in a negative way in Ghana as they were considered deviants but here I am witnessing these same people singing to the acme of inspiration. Different interpretations of the lords word goes on in the two worlds i've experienced. it leaves me between the dilemma of really choosing how to serve him or not to. Many beliefs we have in our country have concrete scientific reasons here in the US. As it was asked in my anthropology class Who are we really. Where are we heading towards and who is in the right path. OUR GOD OUR GOD WE NEED ANSWERS TO MANY OF THE WORLD'S INTRICACIES. Help us understand you a lot more or ...to be continued

[quote=mandock] Sub-Saharan Africa is said to have the highest number of religious practitioners per area.We also have the highest number of man-hours spent on religion per annum.If you plot a graph of religion versus development as measured by a variable like GDP,you seem to get a negative correlation.That is,as religious practice/belief increases,development seems to fall--and vice-versa.One of my professors actually did such a study and confirmed this.[/quote]

Mandock, your professor's finding (negative correlation between religion and economic growth) is quite interesting. However, if you still have contact with him, could you ask if he also tested for Causality (and share with us if he did). Correlation, as you may already know, doesn't imply Causality. Typically, researchers don't test for causality as it is a little more involved than finding the correlation between 2 variables. Causality tests would serve as an invaluable tool for policy makers.
It would be premature to blame religion for the tortoise growth in Ghana based on just the negative correlation we empirically observe: It's well emphasized in literature that there exists a negative correlation between "being black" and productivity. However, this, in no way, implies one's skin color determines one's level of productivity (I know Omanba agrees). Rather, blacks tend to generally have lower levels of education (due to obvious factors like discrimination) and thus have lower productivity level. Similarly, perhaps lazy people tend to be more religious so they could find consolation in divine break-through stories (and also with for manna to fall from heaven). Or perhaps, we tend to be more religious because we are not well endowed: Because there are less economic incentives in Ghana, we can afford to spend lots of time at church. Without a careful study, any law that restricts religion for the sake of economic growth might fail miserably.

Also, even if it's proven that religion does inhibit growth, we ought to be cautious to also consider the counterfactual, What if we didn't have religion in Ghana. We should realize that every decision comes with a cost (Economists loves to put it, "There is nothing like a free lunch") and thus, a Religion-free environment would have its pros and cons. A careful cost and benefit analysis would therefore be in order. If Religion is found to actually inhibit growth, the concern would be to find the optimal level of religion in the country and how we could obtain such a level.

(You know what I think though? I think we don't need to restrict religion but we definitely should tax our churches. Of course, such taxes would be unnecessary if they would end up in the pockets of politicians. Unfortunately, i got to run so i would present my argument later on.)

Yen Ara Asaase Ni and Our destiny lies in our Own Hands
Gyasi K Dapaa

[quote=shaker255]I think this question raises a lot in my mind. I wonder if there is, who(which religion) is actually giving us the right direction. Talking about christianity,it pains me that this same religion I had adored the most, was a cunning way to bring and couldn't help stop one of the worst sins of man,trading fellow men9slavery).It leaves a lot to think about. Our own religion has its own bloody part and I'm pretty sure the others have their own limitations. If there is a God, why would he allow life in one part of the world to be so easy and comforting than another part. Why would some fight obesity whilst others struggle with hunger. Why the differences in what is defined as sins. I had been told to look at people with dredlocks in a negative way in Ghana as they were considered deviants but here I am witnessing these same people singing to the acme of inspiration. Different interpretations of the lords word goes on in the two worlds i've experienced. it leaves me between the dilemma of really choosing how to serve him or not to. Many beliefs we have in our country have concrete scientific reasons here in the US. As it was asked in my anthropology class Who are we really. Where are we heading towards and who is in the right path. OUR GOD OUR GOD WE NEED ANSWERS TO MANY OF THE WORLD'S INTRICACIES. Help us understand you a lot more or ...to be continued [/quote]

It might be helpful to look at it this way: there is religion--an institutional practice that is culturally informed (rasta bad in Ghana, ok in London, attending church everyday ok in Ghana, bad in London, etc)-- and there is spirituality (the feeling that there is a God somewhere and the consequent desire to please her). Usually spirituality finds a house in religion because people like to form institutions (churches, lodges, etc) to support each other in their spirituality. Religion, like any cultural institution, can be used for good or bad. It has been used by many folks to achieve ends that are not exactly spiritually enhancing (e.g. slavery, war, proselytizing, promoting health, justifying social policies). It is no coincidence that the most spiritual people from different religions have a much higher degree of tolerance for each other's religious institutions than those who seek to use the institution to achieve non-spiritual ends.

For example, religion suggests social justice, but it is not necessarily a spiritual goal. Some very spiritual people (say Mahatma Ghandi, Mohamed, several Popes) have used their spiritual authority for political purposes and others have not (say Jesus, some other Popes).

I would not presume to defend God (she's very capable I'm sure), but it makes good sense to me that he'll leave us to our own devices to translate our moral leanings into practice towards our fellow humans to try and please him (or not). And that is exactly what happens for good or for ill. For example Ghandi was assassinated by someone who used religion to promote his own prejudices. Ghandi's crime? Trying to promote peace with Muslims. On the other hand Ghandi also used religion to promote various social causes chiefly the independence of India/Pakistan from Britain.

I think it's very possible to be consistently spiritual while moving around many cultures of religious practice.

Your claim for reverse causality is weak since not all instances of poverty leads to religious practice whereas all instances of excessive religious practice (under the conditions I gave) lead to lack of productivity which in a general way leads to poverty. In other words,poverty may be NECESSARY for religious practice but is not a SUFFICIENT condition whereas leisure (time spent in non productive labor) is both a neccessary and sufficient condition for poverty.The key is to tie religious practice to some measurable variable you can make a claim about such as leisure time and that was all I tried to do.

Nonetheless, I fully support your argument about the difficulty in making causal claims and the need for caution.It's not easy to make an exact causal link not only because of the reason I gave but also because--as you rightly point out--religion *may* be a utopian excape from,and not a cause of poverty.Of course we can know the causes of poverty from any intro Ec textbook and religious practice is not one of them.

If it's indeed a reinforcing cycle as it appears (poverty leads to religious practice which leads to more poverty) there are also the added facts of difficulty in finding suitable comparable cases across countries and isolating other factors like culture.I am not unaware of all the hurdles to such causal claims,as you seem to imply.

Nonetheless...There *seems* (mark the operative word!) to be a link,call it a relationship if you will, between leisure (time not spent in productive labor),religious practice and poverty/underdevelopment which could possibly shed light on the strong foothold of catholicism in impoverished Latin America and the surge in pentecostalism in Africa;with the converse being a general decline in religious practice in Europe as standards of living have risen and leisure has comparatively declined from pre-industrialization levels.Whether this link is causal or not is another question;one that requires research and solid empirical evidence and not just speculation as we might be tempted to do otherwise...

In the absence of further research and empirical evidence, I will refrain from making causal claims (which I never did in the first place if you carefully read my entries).The professor's work I alluded to in my initial post was correlation data (including those of variables other than religion) and he was not making a causal claim about religion in Africa's underdevelopment.

At any rate,even without solid research evidence,it doesn't seem counterintuitive to me that excessive religious practice (not religion per se) dampens the human agency in productivity and development.

RESPECT THE AUTHORITY OF THE IDEA AND NOT THE IDEA OF AUTHORITY

www.ghanaunite.blogspot.com

www.ghanaunite.com

As an Economist, I have been trained to see an uninterrupted market as an efficient allocating mechanism for rational agents. Rational agents are those who are able to make choices that make them the happiest. (wow! how are the market and rationality related to what we are talking about here?). Ok,let me explain myself: A seller quotes his or her price and those who value the product buy while those, who don't value the good, choose not to purchase. Similarly, the airline industry designs separate contracts -economy and business class- and customers self select which ever contract they prefer.This mechanism of allocating goods to people according to customers' respective valuations is considered (and should clearly be seen as) efficient.
However, if there existed no business class seats, then the people who would rather have chosen this higher quality service would be compelled to choose the lower-class ones. In this scenario, the market is said to have failed to achieve efficiency and this kind of market failure is termed as Incomplete Markets or the Non-existence of Markets.
With no difficulty, one could use such a market failure to explain what seems to be an overly-religious culture; one should see that most Ghanaians can afford to spend more hours at church because there exists no other valuable alternative (in economics, we say the opportunity cost of staying at church is insignificant). Hence, the non-existence of jobs have created this culture of too-much-religion. As Kruaseni asks, should we be concerned with this way of life?
Paa Kwesi hits it right on the head: We should be glad that, amidst this non-existence of valuable alternatives (which Mandock terms as productive labor), Ghanaians have decided to spend their leisure hours at the altar; At least, at the church, they are taught to be respectful, calm, non-violent and hopeful of the future.
My guess is (and this should appeal to many people), as Ghana creates job, the opportunity cost of church-going would increase, thereby, causing people to limit the time they spend at the church. Also, I expect this job-creation to change the preferences of Ghanaians for churches: They, like citizens of many developed nations where time is seen to be money, would prefer churches that let them out early. This shift in preferences would cause religious leaders to schedule church services as short as possible. To exemplify, one would find the services of churches that have substantial number of wealthy (or employed) people to be parsimoniusly organized (timewise of course).
Mandock's ascription of Ghana's tortoise growth to Ghanaians' liberal church-going is hard to believe. Because, most of these church-goers would have slept, stayed at home or only God Knows what they would have done in the case of the counterfactual.
Gyasi K Dapaa

I'm no preacher but the one religion I have a first hand appreciation of is the one based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth(c. BC 6 - AD 27). In one often quoted saying he says, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see heaven". "Heaven" is the place of ultimate reward for adherents of Jesus' teachings. In this context, if material poverty serves to remind these adherents of a poverty in spirit it's all the better. (I understand "poverty in spirit" to refer to a self-acknowledged inadequacy of being such that one needs the "riches" Jesus offers in exchange for being his follower. ) Within this context, material well-being or not is only incidental. Materially poor people are not necessarily "poor in spirit". Materially rich people are also not necessarily "rich in spirit" either. There is no relation between the two states, despite the fact that we tend to confuse the two. So it is quite natural to observe what you note above when material and social circumstances change.

It doesn't mean anything grander than that. In fact most astute people can tell which people are merely socially religious and which others are not. So at best the relation between material poverty and religiosity is merely circumstantial. Material poverty does not cause religiosity. If you view Ghanaian churches as generally open social clubs the non-relationship becomes even more clear. There are few other alternatives where you get a motivational speaker to come excite you, find a marriage partner, etc, all in exchange for a very modest membership fee (generally as much as you can afford). There are many poor people who are not religious at all (consider communist China whose society is designed to prevent religious organizations from preying on the poor and switching their allegiance to another form of authority which can undermine the government's authority). In fact many proselytizing wings of religious organizations aim to win converts using this same understanding--provide essential social services in exchange for membership. That is why many societies don't tax religious organizations the same way they don't tax other non-government social entities (because they produce public goods that the government is unable to provide adequately).

PS: Poverty doesn't turn people into Dalai Lamas...

aye, my mistake. i quote Jesus because that is what i could easily remember. I quoted it to illuminate the general point. The point is actually about the "self-acknowledged inadequacy of being". It may have gotten lost because I put it in brackets.

Most religions emphasize some sort of "humility" towards a higher power, a humility that requires acknowledging that you are inadequate in your being in some way and thus seek the help of this higher power to fulfill this inadequacy.

I'm arguing that this "humility" is the true measure of religiosity/spirituality. Poor people may confuse their material poverty with this "humility" but it appears quite separate to me. You do not have to be rich to lack this type of "humility". And while it may seem that poor people tend to eat more of this "humble" pie (again, just another quote I'm using to try to illuminate a point) it is not the case that they're actually being "humble".

As for what churches teach, that's normal. Any social group tries to entice its members to keep their membership. Like someone already suggested, the surest way to counter the influence of the church as a too-powerful social club is to provide people with other alternatives for social expression (not merely employment). Those who are religious will still choose to go to church. Those who are not may find the other alternatives more appealing and drift from church with less than a week's burden of guilt to stress about.

This discussion brings up a somewhat related observation--it seems to me that Ghanaian "Christianity" is very superstitious and almost indistinguishable[fear this, fast 2 days, on the 3rd day that, etc] from the pre-Christian superstitious religious practices[fear that, fast 2 days, on 4th day this, etc]... any counter observations?

If there's any group of people who should be less religious and more secular progressive, it should be Africans. What has christianity and Islam done for Africans? Just think about slavery ( western & arab) and you would understand why. Christianity and Islam justified slavery. We have some blacks in Mauritania who believe they have to serve the so called "white arab moors" because the quran says so. Religion is just a way to oppress ignorant people. Africans should worry more about complete freedom of speech and expression, science & technology, entrepreneurship and wealth creation. These are the things that would move us forward not the jesus freaks and mohammed/sharia/jihad crap.

I'm not saying that every African should be an atheist or that religion should be banned, I'm saying Africans should spend more time on science, technology & entrepreneurship and less time on religion. Africans should be less religious and more secular progressive. " Please think about the pro-growth effects of religion: honesty, reduction in crime, hardwork, transparency."
Ghana is a very religious country, so why is armed robbery, corruption, lack of transparency so high in Ghana? Hardwork? Why is productivity so low in Ghana? I believe if Ghanaians keep the attitude of nyame be ye and fa ma nyame, we won't go far.

LET US INVEST IN OUR COUNTRY.LET'S BUILD OUR BUSINESSES & INDUSTRIES (SMALL,MEDIUM, MNC). LET'S PROTECT OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. LET'S SPEAK UP! LET'S CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO.TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE GHANA A BETTER PLACE.YEN ARA Y'ASASE NE! GOD BLESS GHANA!

i'm sorry, i just can't help but where is heaven?