Science and religion

Yup 2 weeks of silence, I’m sure you guys enjoyed the break, but its over man. Greetings to you all man, hope that the world’s alright with you. I cant complain too much, everyday is another journey isn’t it?!

Shoo on Monday I had one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had in quite a while. In the morning one of my good friends Phils asked me to come to a church thing with him later that evening, there was this scientist who was going to link together Science and God and Dinosaurs etc. I was like happy days.

Anyway, you can see the guy is as smart as they get, but his articulation ability wasn’t quite up there man. He kept getting excited and leaving stories half told and it was insane but it was still very enlightening. The gist of his talk was that both scientists and Christians are singing from the exact same hymn sheet, we just don’t want to see each other.

Lets start from the beginning, astronomy and physics have shown that the world had a beginning, prior to that there was nothing. In Hebrews 11:3 states, and I quote “ 3By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Basically saying the same thing, because what is visible is invisible which in my book means nothing. But I am keen to entertain alternative views.

Ok we move on…right so lets talk about the creation because man its always confused me but when you read it in its simplicity, because then it makes sense, if we try to be clever then we miss each other. Which ties into Genesis which says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That’s fantastic. But then we all start getting confused by the fact that the world was made in 6 days and rested on the 7th He rested. So the universe was created in the beginning. Wasn’t on day 1 though, it could well have been millions of years ago…ok so we park that.

There is a whole scientific explanation as to how planets are formed and they are merely filled with gasses and they float around in an elliptical orbit due to the different push and pull effects of nature, it is all quite technical and the explanation of this would elongate my blog unnecessarily ☺. So we accept that the universe was created with the earth, but not as we see it now, just a frozen gaseous ball, floating around without orbit because its star could have exploded or whatever the phenomenon is that sends planets adrift. Which fits in perfectly with Genesis too because it says the earth was without form and empty….

Ok so the earth is drifting along and what would in all probability have been its settling point, well I’m no scientist, but id assume when it was in proximity with the sun pushing and the moon pulling, which would have caused its orbit to be as we now see it.

Ok so we proceed, day 1, planet is now orbiting around the sun and the moon around the earth, so day 1 He says let there be light…note it wasn’t create light,so what could have happened is the earth finding its place between the moon and the sun created the essence of light on the planet, which is still a frozen gaseous mass…the elliptical orbit causes night and day right. But even if there was light the planet was still in a haze, because of the gasses.

Day 2 let there be an expanse in the middle of the waters…so now all this time the earth is thawing right cos of the heat of the sun. now whats the upper waters now, cos we all know the bottom water to be the ocean, well duh the clouds, its still water no?

Day 3 was hectic, cos the waters gathered in one place and dry land appeared, then the next thing was creating plants. So the earth and I think most other planets, when created its just filled with Carbon Dioxide and other gasses, but if I am not mistaken its plenty C02. And what do planets do? They absorb CO2 in the atmosphere not so?

Day 4, well after all or most of the gasses had been absorbed by the plants, there was some clarity and the division of the 2 great lights were made visible as well as the little twinkling stars.

Ok I will stop here with this one and move on to dinosaurs. In Job 40 they describe an animal that could be a dinosaur (or kangaroo) if you are keen read v 15 -24. Ok that said so when did they die out? I don’t know. The way he was leading was that they all died in Noahs flood. Which was plausible. Why? Well if you look at all the archeological findings of dinosaur bones, the largest being in Zhuchen, China, where there are bones of plenty different dinosaurs in close proximity of each other, which means one of 2 things they were either in the same place when they died, or they were swept there. Now you tell me if you are a small little grass eating dino would you be anywhere near a massive carnivorous dino, logic says errr no. So could it be that they could have been swept there by a mass of water…floods of Noahs time perhaps? The only question I had though was as far as I can remember Noah was asked to take a male and female of each kind of animal, so why weren’t dinosaurs included? But then there is also a distinction between clean and unclean animals…

Then there is the case of this Homonid found in the cradle of humankind recently. Right now this Australopithecus sediba as it is now being called was found just outside our front door here, it was a mother and a child. Its form is ape like but not necessarily an ape but not human neither. Ok cool, but it was found with other animals such as aber-toothed cats, mongooses, wild dogs, antelopes and hyenas. Note the others are all in their natural unevolved forms, but we humans evolved from the apes, yet there are still apes around now…

Anyway we will never know all the answers now will we, but its still pretty interesting, I wish the dude had Barak Obama to deliver his presentation for him because then I would have been a little more clearer, but alas…

That’s me for this week.
Birthdays
8th DJ, Nadia
9th Dean
11th Rudi, Santie
12th Cohen, Yao
14th Natasha D
15th Garth, Yashika
19th Raksha
21st Mrs B Mountain
22nd Mish Wats
25th Samir, Elmar
26th Karabo Tshailane, Tanya, Gina Linda
27th Harold Rea, Couts
28th Jele, Folks 37th anniversary
29th Sheya Shipanga, reids
30th ETO Maravs, Lesley,

That’s a wrap folks enjoy the rest of your week

Y

Soccer World Cup more than just a game?

On Friday night/Saturday morning a whole lot of Ghanaians and Black Star supporters had quotes of Alicia Keys song ‘Sleeping with a Broken Heart’ as their status update…

I am 34 years old and I cant remember one single event that cut me so deep man. I’ve lost 4 world cups with the All Blacks, failed at a few things, but this man, this cut me deep! Someone was trying to tell me its ok they tried, in my head I just wanted to say listen pis s the f**k off right now cos I actually do want to feel like this! Anyway on Saturday afternoon I was over it and back on the road again as the saying goes Cest la vie…

But I did spend the whole morning evaluating why I felt like this. Football isn’t really my sport because I cant handle the random decisions based on how much better a player acts, I cant really understand why a sport refuses to use technology available to it, even tennis does, I cant also understand why that sport allows ‘cheating’ but then again if its allowed, then its not cheating now is it?!!

So all thoughts raced through my head and I got to thinking, to some this may have just been a game, but to many others and me this was about more than football. Really it was. It was the continents time to shine and for most part we have.

We showed the world what we are capable of if we put our minds and our bodies to it. The continent, not just South Africans and Ghanaians were united for a common cause, where else in the world would you see a whole bunch of different countries join forces to support another nation? Nowhere but this lovely continent of ours! You cant imagine how proud I felt on Friday before the game to see the masses and man there were puhlenty of people who turned up in the cold to watch the match at Melrose Arch. The beauty of it all was the diversity of the crowd, not just blacks but it was a licorice allsorts.

What Ghana represented was the fact that a country from proper ‘black Africa’ for a change, weren’t no good, thieves, lazy so ds, no good nig gas, useless Africans who aren’t worthy of jobs, education, dating your sister/brother/child. Just for a few weeks…days…they carried a continents hope and their send off yesterday and its attendance showed this clearly

No offence intended, and if you do decide to take offence I guess you are entitled to, but it also made me feel as if South Africa and South Africans started seeing themselves more as part of the continent. Why do I say this, well many a corporate and indvidual refers to other countries beyond our borders as Africa, and that grates my cheese no end. We are looking for opportunities in Africa, I want to go and take a look at Africa..etc etc, no man, I am looking at mineral deposits in the Congo, Zimbabwe, Nigeria etc. I am looking at expanding into other parts of the continent….

All these good things being said though, the counter to this rang true and loud in my head. Once again we failed as a people to proceed and yet we are ok with it. Yes the handball was blatant but it’s allowed by the current rules of football. The ref red carded him and gave us a penalty. Now instead of my countryman putting the ball down and taking his time to reflect on the magnitude of the moment, I am just speculating based on his persona on the field and in interviews. The thought that ran through his head was its MY time, I’m going to be the guy, im going to be the hero. Typical, stereotyped, African mentality, Idi Amin (Uganda), Mobutu Sese Seko(Zaire), Jean Bedel Bokassa (CAR), Teodoro Obiang (equatorial Guinea), Mangistu Haile Mariam (Ethiopia), Omar Al Bashir (Sudan), Charles Taylor(liberia),Laurent Kabilla (DRC), Robert Mugabe (Zim)… I’m not saying he wanted to miss, because just as shaite as I was feeling on Friday eve/Saturday morning, I can only imagine that he felt 3million times worse, but still man, once again Africans being what the world knows to be African, those guys who seem content with mediocrity. I look at countries like Nigeria and Ivory Coast, before the world cup, they changed their coaches, players, like Eto of Cameroon, were threatening not to come to the world cup, even our 7th team at the world cup France, dominated by players of African decent, now this may be hugely inflammatory, but it is what it seems to be, they imploded and it doesn’t matter if no one says it out loud, many of us are thinking just that.

We are always victims, always something else or somebody else’s fault. Slavery, apartheid, dictators, white bosses don’t give us opportunities, business partners scre wing us, there are remedies and means and ways to change your position, but as a collective rather than individually. Croatians had mad genocide and look at them now, they are blossoming as a country, Jews had the holocaust, but look at them now they run the world basically. But Africa, we are still everyone’s poor little Africans, nah man!

Cameroon and Nigeria should have easily walked out of their groups into the last 16, its not that the other teams were better than them, its more a case of their mentality letting them down. No sportsman goes onto the field wanting to lose, unless you are Hansie and whoever else the bookies get to, but the desire isn’t enough there has to be the attitude the mentality that we are not just doing this for me but for all who went before and will come after, all at home who have placed so much hope in us. Its about pride man the will for my country to succeed. Its evident in ze Germans, the Dutch, even the English, Koreans, Japanese and the Italians, Koreans showed it too, but I felt that ‘gees’ was missin from many of our African sides.

4 weeks ago if someone had told me that the Ghanaian team would have gotten as far as they did, I most probably would have taken it. But then as the tournament wore on, I saw they were capable of greater things. So I readjusted my hopes to semi finals at least. So I am not happy with where they ended. I am not happy with how the rest of the teams fared. Its not like they are not good enough because they are! They make all their European team mates look good when they play together and sometimes even out shine them. In a way, I say bigups to the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, who has banned his team from participating in any international tournaments for 2 years, a bit harsh I think, because FIFA is also taking a hardline and will ban the youngsters and the women teams too, should they not reconsider and that will be counter productive. But I hail him in that he said this sh it is not good enough! Ghana, had a chance to reach the semi finals. Last kick of the game, it was there on a silver platter but we instead said, oh master boss, please we cant take it, you have it. NO MORE dam nit we are better than that!

Still very proud of the way we hosted the cup, Im proud my country of birth carried the hopes of the continent as far as it did and gave us as much joy as it did and maybe its part of my disappointment in the loss, which was that my little country was on the map, people in South Africa, painting their face red, yellow, green. I cant even try and imagine how much pride the people there were feeling, but if my pride is anything to gauge it to, then they must have been tooo happy ;) but alas…we failed to see it through once again. Maybe im being harsh, maybe its me who had high expectations. I say im glad I have high expectations, because that’s the only way to get to the next level, you can’t accept misfortune and complacency as the norm. You can achieve higher if you desire. I am over hearing shame the poor little Africans tried, a bit of pride. Im over Bob Geldolf, Richard Branson, Bono etc. coming to help the poor little Africans, what about all the high flying African cats who can pop champagne at Moloko or Rehab, why cant we help our own? Bit of pride man and compassion for those around you…

Birthdays
8th July Dinesh Joseph
9th Dean Peters

and that’s a wrap. Have a blessed week

Maximum respect

Y

The absolute top of the morning to you all!! I wasn’t going to write anything this week and then I logged on to read my daily new and then I read the first few lines of the main story which read “We Ghana win it”.

Man I don’t want to jump on the band wagon and pledge my unfailing and unquestionable allegiance to the land of my birth, because in all honesty if I had to decide between my Ghanaian citizenship or my South African one, I’d most probably bin my Ghanaian one. That being said, sheesh, words can not even describe the amount of pride I’m filled with as I lie here and type. Our ‘little’ country, with a football association that isn’t overflowing with resources, I don’t think the players are being paid bonuses or the like and yet the dedication and the will to succeed is there for all to see.

Those 23 players are not only representing Ghana (the name, which by the way means warrior King), but they are representing the whole continent. Country with a population of roughly 24million people of which around 30% live off $1.25 a day, is now on the map man. About 1billion Africans have put their hopes and wishes for success behind this our nation. I know I sound all emo and all but man the last few weeks in this country…on this continent have made me insanely chuffed to be a child of the soil. We have shown the whole world that we can, we are not the bunch of monkeys that they say we are or let us believe we are. Who would ever have thought that a simple activity of kicking a round ball between sticks would do so much to heal a nation, stop wars, reduce crime, give hope to many, even if its for 4 weeks. Julius has kept quiet, JZ isn’t marrying anyone, traffic isn’t an issue, who is Robert Mugabe, elections are going on without much fanfare. Yeah, I know little Busi and her 7 orphaned siblings, still don’t have much food to live on and this will still be the case after the world cup, but for 4 weeks, the continent kind of looks past its problems….

Who needs politicians I ask. All we need is a bunch of footballers and the world would be alright with us. If you, like me have ever doubted the credibility behind the assertion that soccer is the biggest and possibly the most influential game in the world, doubt no more because the last 2 or so weeks have cleared up whatever doubt that may exist in my mind. I have experienced a rugby world cup, which to its credit did wonders for South Africa, South Africans and our humanity in general, the cricket world cup was really a non event, but this my friends, this….wooow!! There is no where else id rather be!

After we (Bafana) lost, there was an email doing the rounds and shaiza I had to take a moment! Here is a transcript of that presentation, even if you have seen it before…

It does not matter that we did not qualify. What matters is our team inspired us all. What matters is they gave us hope. It does not matter that we were alone... because now we are together. What started as a game ... is becoming something more.
What matters is what we are creating ...
... the jobs ...
... the skills ...
... the infrastructure ...
... and our common future. It does not matter that we did not qualify. What matters is that we host the best World Cup ever. What matters is that we host the best World Cup ever. Let’s not stop now. We have opened our hearts to each other ...

... now let’s open them to the world.

* Starting now ...
* choose another country to support
* paint your face for that team
* fill the fan parks
* help a tourist
* say hello to new people
* fly the flags even higher
* and be proud of our country

K e n a k o ! This is our chance. Let’s keep it going.

I know many are all world cup fanfared out, but don’t be man, we have the rest of the year to be bleak, and angry and complain, but for the next week and a bit lets get lost in the silliness that is the first world cup on African soil. Lets not worry about the white elephants that may or may not remain. Lets be chuffed that we did it. Lets be chuffed that as Africans or just people in general there is nothing that is insurmountable if we put our minds to it and work together.

I am such a chuffed Ghanaian South African today…we are ok man, we are ok!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghana if u wanna read more about Ghana..

Birthdays
13th Fiifi
16th Abo, Simpiwe
17th Tasneem
18th Satish, Lebo Baloyi, sarah
20th Kgashane, Jake
21st Hamish
22nd Dakes, simone, Zulfiq Isaacs
23rd Pete
24th Gretchen Maree
25th Ofei
27th Gail, Minky, seanie
29th Simone
30th Dineo, Alun
1st Keith Magill
3rd Jen

Respect and have a wikkid weekend…
Y