Of Religion, French Pecking Order, and Frogs

"Deep in the [post-war 1948] countryside of Correze in the Massif Central in the middle of France ... there was a church, packed with attendance by women and children, while the men discussed the important things of life in the bar-cafe across the square. The village priest, always called Monsieur l'Abbe, was friendly to me but slightly distant, convinced that as a Protestant I was tragically destined for hell. Up at the chateau on the hill dwelled Madame de Lamaziere, the very old matriarch of the surrounding land. She did not come to church; it came to her in the form of poor Monsieur l'Abbe, sweating up the hill in the summer sun to bring her Mass in her private chapel. The pecking order was very rigid, and even God had to recognize the distinctions.

          As my French improved, I made friends with a number of village boys to whom I was an object of extreme curiosity. The summer of 1948 was blazingly hot and our daily magnet was the lake a mile outside the village. There, with rods made from reeds, we could fish for large green frogs, whose back leg, dusted with flour and fried in butter, made an excellent supper." 

Frederich Forsyth, 2015, 14-16

The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue

"Religion Has Messed Up Many A Promising Life!"

(By Emeka Oparah) - Now, this is how people are being wasted! 
         I visited a cousin last weekend. We hadn’t seen each other for over a year. Expectedly, there was a lot of catching up to do including the rising spate of sudden and “inexplicable” deaths, especially of young people. In actual fact, there were more than 5 funerals due back home in the village, as we were talking-and that, my dear friends, bothered us a whole lot. Then, he told me a story.
         Last Christmas, he was home (while I was abroad, ironically). A diabetic, he probably over-reached himself, and started feeling “one-kind”. He asked to be rushed to a hospital and was taken to one of the better ones. As soon as the doctor saw him, he ordered he be given a drip! Drip, Father wondered. Yes, drip!
         “Doctor, why would you give me an infusion when you haven’t even asked me any questions; you haven’t taken my vitals or requested my medical history”, he questioned.
         The doctor took one cynical look at him and sarcastically asked him: “Are you a doctor? If you are, why then did you come to me. May be you’re not sick. When you are sick enough, you talk to me!” And with that said, he called the next victim, sorry patient.
         Crazy!!! And that’s how one of the folks, due for burial this weekend in the village, died. She too is a diabetic. A widow, her mother-in-law was to be buried the next day, and she suddenly started feeling sick. She called her friend, a “nurse”, who then gave her an infusion right in her bedroom and went away. After an hour or so, concerned family members went to check on her and found her dead!!! I’m not sure they didn’t say her late mother-in-law took her! You never know these things.

The Fabric of Nigerian Weddings

Bride Dola Olutoye poses with her bridesmaids in traditional Nigerian attire and matching geles, a scarf or fabric folded into an ornate shape atop a woman’s head.Olu Ogundeyin of IMG Artistry

(By Adenike Olanrewaju) - The Fabric of Nigerian Weddings. The color and flair of traditional ceremonies give brides and grooms a way to express a vibrant cultural heritage.

Dola Fatunbi Olutoye, 25, was ecstatic after becoming engaged last November to Dr. Yinka Olutoye, 26. She knew she wanted a traditional Nigerian wedding, but needed help executing the cultural elements of the ceremony, which took place on May 25 in Houston. 

Mrs. Olutoye, a pharmacy student from Houston, and Dr. Olutoye, a recent medical school graduate, are both Nigerian-Americans who are part of the Yoruba ethnic group, which is heavily concentrated in the Southwest region of Nigeria.

Of Nigerians and the Lunacy of Money Rituals

(By Temidayo Ahanmisi) - Meanwhile we still do NOT have the tiniest shred of evidence to suggest that money rituals work.

Not one.

Every suspected money ritualist has a thriving business which they pursue.
The question is Why? What's the point of striving at a trade when said ritualist could just as well order money to pour from anywhere, and crisp notes would litter the place?

I think I'm moving far ahead of myself on this. In the first place, the said ritualist or the native doctors even needing to subjugate their supposed powers to currency bills is the first fail.

Why can't the ritualist be powerful enough to just get all his needs delivered willingly to his doorstep? 
Bankers would bring cash. Car dealers would drop cars and skip away. Food sellers would drop food items..

Why need money? Why "mint" money?

Rationalism trumps this base superstition at any time, but the politics of religious people in need of validation of their myths and faith would not let reason have sway and take the day over ignorance, fear and Incredulity. It is imperative to the religious to have a phantom devil so intractably powerful that they would fight tooth and nail to maintain the contrivance of an omnipotent Evil, capable of the most insane feats.

Re Religion: Instinct Leads, Reason Follows

The "inferiority of the rationalistic level in founding belief is just as manifest when rationalism argues for religion as when it argues against it. That vast literature of proofs of God's existence drawn from order of nature, which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, today does little more than gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for. Whatever sort of being God may be, we KNOW today that he is nevermore that mere external inventor of 'contrivances' intended to make manifest his 'glory' in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction, though just how we know this we cannot possibly make clear by words either to others or to ourselves. ...

The truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion. Then, indeed, our intuitions and our reason work together, and great world-ruling systems, like that of the Buddhist or of the Catholic philosophy may grow up. Our impulsive belief is here always what sets up the original body of truth, and our articulately verbalized philosophy is but its showy translation into formulas. The unreasoned and immediate assurance is the deep thing in us, the reasoned argument is but a surface exhibition. Instinct leads, intelligence does but follow. ...

Please observe, however, that I do not yet say that it is BETTER that the subconscious and non-rational should thus hold primacy in the religious realm. I confine myself to simply pointing out that they do so hold it as a matter of fact."

William James, 2012 [1901-1902], 54-55

"The Reality of the Unseen," The Varieties of Religious Experience