Facial Beards are Religious symbols, why do atheists grow them?

Atheists grow them because beards are not grown for religious reasons.You can also read from wikipedia. They're grown because many men think they enhance their appearance. Some men, both religious and non-religious choose to wear beards because they saw no benefit in shaving. In countries that go through cold winters, a beard definitely does offer protection against icy winds.

There is also an association in place that promotes the worldwide appreciation of beards and moustaches, and to co-ordinate international events, including competitions, held in such a manner as to encourage friendship among those with beards and moustaches.

It was 1:30pm Friday 30th April 2010. I just returned home feeling very exhausted for no particular reason. I left home very early in the morning, feeling very energetic and hopeful that May will be a better month since I didn't make any money in April. Also I hope that since Saturday 1 May 2010 is a public day, I will enjoy it home listening to my best music.

On my way home, I decided to visit a barber and trim my beard that I have left grow; not very big but it was an issue since I had an appointment with a female friend whom I met online. Previously I had met people, both men and women while wearing my beard. Time has changed many things in our generation.No one minded our fore fathers when they had beards. No one labeled them Moslems or any other religions. There are many religions and cultural traditions that treasure beards. But none of them were making me grow my beard.

To tell the truth, I don't mind beards. I wouldn't mind growing them or not. I still feel okay with either. My recent attempts to grow a beard proved that women fear men with beards, at least Ugandan women and those who are married to men with huge beards, only adopt how to live with them. If you doubt me, try to grow your beard and make a move to a new lady, try to date her. Chances of her saying NO are very high compared to when you have no beard. So in most cases, I have used the beard to scare away those small women that I always desired and had inner crush on them. The moment I open my mouth to say hello, they turn away from me mainly because of my beard.

But then, I cut off my beard when Moslems start to initiate "Asalam allekum sheikh" way of greetings to Moslems. I always wondered why one would think that am a Moslem because of my beard, yet there are other religions that treasure beards like those who belong to an Orthodox Church.

The only reason why I allow my beard grow is simple. It's neither cultural nor religious. It's because I hate saloon barber shops. All the times I have visited them, my skin develops strange painful pimples. The utensils in these shops are not well maintained, not clean, and even the barbers themselves are dirty. Honestly there are some good barbers who are clean and maintain their utensils, but these are very few. And when you met one, the trimming prices are always skyrocketing--just like many services in Uganda.

It seems as though some of these barbers don't brush their teeth, or they eat garlic just before opening shop. Hence, they smell. If you are in a business that makes you come close to your clients, you need to be extremely clean since only a small space will be between your nose and their mouth. Sometimes people have bad odour because they eat garlic--even though they brush their teeth before coming to work. The oils of garlic seep through the skin and the body transfers this oil from bloodstream into the lungs. This is why I avoid eating garlic.

Recently I found a good barber who was in Kawempe. He was smart and young and he boiled his utensils in my presence. But when he came close to my face, the air from his mouth (I smelt it because he was talking to another barber and every time, he talked, I felt nauseated. Since then, I haven't shaved or trimmed my beard. So today I decided to return to the same guy since he boiled his tools. He was trimming a client's beard on which he spent two hours and several minutes. I decided to wait and wait. He finished and I thought that it was now my turn. But then he called another guy whom he claimed was there before me. I wouldn't imagine spending another two hours waiting. This immediately made quite unhappy.

What was the role of Africans in promoting Slave Trade? Should we consider Reparations after it ended decades and decades ago?

This is an  interesting article, written by a black professor, on the issue of slave reparations.  This is not going to sit well with many blacks in America.

So now the Islamists are operating inside Kenya.

So now the Islamists are operating inside Kenya.  When will this end? Will they come to Uganda too? Now here is a group that needs those missile-launchers.  Oh boy, could they ever kill lots of infidels. Please also read .That's about militants from Somalia's most hard line insurgent group that executed a man they convicted of murder and cut off the hands of an accused thief -- after injecting him with anesthesia.

If you are wondering what other countries are doing on religious rights, Think again. Indonesia’s Constitutional Court ruled 8 to 1 Monday that a controversial 45-year-old law banning religious blasphemy was constitutional. The law allows the attorney general’s office to ban religious groups that “distort” or “misrepresent” official faiths and calls for up to five years in prison for anyone found guilty of heresy.

The law also limits the number of officially recognized religions to six: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism. NO ATHEISTS

What should we consider as morals?

I have been seeing more of our detracting behaviors in our society. People are changing the way they behave within public places. I have heard moral and religious fanatics put the blame on TV stations mostly referring to foreign proggrammes aired almost in all African continent, they blame western influence and honestly I don’t know why one would blame USA, Canada, European states for the rotting society, they even go ahead and blame the internet itself without critically examining their invalid criticism. I say that because there’s no internet in Ugandan remotest areas, they don’t even own a TV set yet you still find the same behaviors that I consider to be out of place in society gatherings.

I personally don’t know who is the overseer of society morals and who is responsible for re-enforcing morals against immorality. But there are things that people do in public place which makes me feel uneasy and one of them is tooth picking, blowing your nose ( worse still with no hand kerchief)  heavy open sneezing, spitting, urinating on the side walks and making our streets public toilets, letting wastes run directly from parameter walls to the nearby neighborhoods, the open street dumping which has made almost all townships in Uganda and Kampala a dumping site and honestly this is very common in Uganda and mostly done by all people, women and men, younger and old, educated and those who never attended school. So should we go ahead and blame the internet, Western Countries for that too?

You have seen passengers in taxis extending the arms behind the seats. They let their armpits out its smell, mostly the smell is not fresh and good, I have observed the armpits always dirt. You have seen women who put on trousers, this is okay but why do you put on a blouse that cannot cover the whole of your wastes, they let their knickers out on public display, this puts me off. You have seen men, those who think that they are putting on “balance” as a dressing code and make their trousers as if holding pupu inside and making their underwear out in public areas.

 Its only in Uganda where you find parents presenting their children to NGOs as orphans seeking free donations and these parents even train their kids to lie, and tell you what, these are religious people since 99% of Ugandans have deities . So it puzzles me to hear President Museveni saying that he will give powers to Institutionalized religions to implement Government programmes because he thinks religious people are not corrupt something I personally don’t agree with.

This morning I boarded a taxi from Nakulabye through Makerere Hill road to Wandegeya and then to township (I don’t feel like calling Kampala a city, it lacks whatever it takes to be a city). This 40+ year old driver, whom I met in the taxi and sat within it for the 40 minutes as he waits passengers, was tooth picking, I watched with anxiety with hope that he will be through with that within minutes. I felt irritated and since I was next to him, I put off that ugly squarely face but the dude wasn’t willing to read my facial expressions. I usually use my face to communicate to someone who is irritating but Ugandans have forgotten to read faces or they simply don’t mind at all? The guy tooth picked for the next two hours that we spent in the car, thought the heavy traffic jams and may be he was just telling the passengers that look, I did have lunch, have you had yours? Whatever he wanted to communicate, it just didn’t represent a modern and well behaved man in our society.

State of witchcraft....What do Ugandan Free thinker's say?

There was a story that appeared in one of our daily newspaper and it declared that Uganda is a state of witchcraft .I wanted to share with you this story from another reknowned thinker in Uganda.who tried replying to that publication. There was also another Ugandan who did comment on the same story here . I hope you have another reason now to rethink about the research done by Pew Research Centre

You can also read this  and finally,how can i forget to tell you about Free Thinkers NIGHT?

Freethought Kampala is going to have its usual monthly meeting at a bar/restaurant called "4 Points" in Centenary Park on THURSDAY the 29th of April, starting 6PM.

The topic this month is "Is Religion Necessary for Morality’?"

ENTRANCE IS FREE

In Uganda, tell a religious person that you’re an atheist, and they’ll probably think one of two things about you (if not both). They’ll either think you’re a devil worshipper; or once you’ve made them understand that you don’t believe in any supernatural entities of any kind, they’ll conclude you must be a highly immoral person. ‘On what basis, then, besides religious laws, do you base your morality?’ believers will often ask the non-believer.

Indeed, most believers imagine that religion is necessary for morality. They think unless one believes in gods and their associated holy texts, one cannot have a good guide for morality.

It is believed that the details of things that ought to be done and ought not to be done are contained in religious texts, and that for one to be considered a moral person they would need to possess a good understanding of these guidelines prescribed in the preferred holy book of that culture, and be seen to adhere to them. Those that don’t subscribe to religious belief of any kind are thus viewed with suspicion.

Discussing this topic will provide us a good opportunity to show believers that atheists, agnostics and non-believers in general aren’t the evil people many believers imagine we are.

If you are an open minded person whose opinions are formed not by religious or cultural dogma but on the basis of science, logic, and reason and are interested in meeting like-minded individuals - you are WELCOME to join us at the meeting!

Freethought Kampala brings together Kampala’s non-religious people, such as freethinkers, skeptics, atheists, agnostics, humanists, and those with naturalistic world views.

Please keep time.

Atheists win one

If i don't report this great win for Atheists,i may truly be cheating myself.I am looking forward for winnings in Africa.I hope Atheists in Africa will have courage and take our freinds in developed countries as an example. We have more reasons to stand against autocracy than ever before.

Should bus drivers be armed themselves?

On Saturday, a member of Sanyu FM breakfast show face book page posted a photo that almost destroyed my day. I thought of it all day long. I was asking myself many questions over and over but no one could answer me. It disturbed me so much that even when I went for a free thinker’s meet up in the evening, I still thought about it and this forced me to seriously inquire from my friends if this story and picturewas truly true and they all said YES and interestingly, some of them confirmed that they read the story and saw this pictures sometime back. It was the first time for me.

As I left the venue, while riding in a public taxi, I again asked myself why this could happen in Nigeria. As I think more of this, I decided to start thinking of writing a blog post on it and here are my opinions on the story.

I don't know how this happened, why people would obey by lying down.  Knowing me, I would have run ----just run and have them shoot me.  I would have screamed "fight the robbers" or something like that.   Screaming is a good self-defense tactic.  Being a victim of several instances of violence in my life, I know that screaming does unnerve criminals.

 I am sure that the bus driver (basing my remarks solely on what is reported) is doing a lot of re-thinking about this.  Should he have allowed himself to be killed by refusing to drive over people? 

Should bus drivers be armed themselves? What about technology that alerts the police in the local area? Where are the robbers? Or are they long gone and will never be brought to justice?

Why are people driven to this point?  The partial answer is that the very poor have nothing to lose, so they do anything because the specter of punishment means nothing. But there are so many things that led up to this. This is small when compared to the violence in Jos State.  And there so much that goes unreported.

I remember an article in Time magazine, published sometime in the 80s, describing the parties the rich in Nigeria had.  The air conditioning made the house so cold that the female guests had to wear furs to keep warm.  They wanted to mimic the Europeans who wore furs to their events.  It didn't occur to them that even the rich in Europe don't wear furs to parties in the summer-time.  But the point was the class divide--the very rich that can carry out their expensive fantasies vs. the very poor in Nigeria.  Or the very poor in Haiti who eat salted mud cakes

The second point concerns oil executives who care only about how much wealth they can extract from the oil wells in Nigeria (or any other country).  In their contracts, they could put in human rights clauses which would demand that 80% of the wealth derived from Nigerian oil be dedicated to population control, school repair and construction, hospitals & medical supplies, trained doctors, etc., housing and other programs that would uplift the poor.  But they don't! Since am in Uganda, let’s keep our eye widely open and see if Ugandans will benefit from oil revenues.

 The rich control the U.S. population and the world.  International boundaries are meaningless to the world’s wealthy.  The 20% for the rich, far fewer in number, would go a long way.

The Republicans are opposed to women's rights and population control. More poor people looking for work benefits the wealthy with cheap supply of labour.

President Museveni  and you can also see this is getting very cozy with one of Africa's most evil men, President Mugabe. What does this mean for poor people in Uganda?  I'm not exactly sure, but nothing good!

And there's the problem of the news media which, for the most part, is controlled by the rich. 

For example, the news media deliberately did not publish photos of the more than 2,000 people who jumped from the World Trade Centre on 9/11.   Why?  Are they protecting the sensibilities of the readers, or are they protecting the upper class?

How long will it be before the rich control the Internet?  China, North Korea and Arab countries are demonstrating how it can be done and that it can be done. With technology, where so many people have cameras, we can find out things that the news media just won't report.

Make sure you do no harm to others, and try to spread a little pleasantness and love in this unpleasant and unfriendly human world.

We don't choose where to be born, we don't get to choose our families--all these choices are made for us.  And yet, horrible people like Mr Conroy take it upon himself to murder a man from Ecuador because he was holding his brothers hand. Make sure you do no harm to others, and try to spread a little pleasantness and love in this unpleasant and unfriendly human world.

Never Trust a Christian or any religious fanatics

I will not go in full details of how 90 percent of Christians in Africa mostly those of pentecostal denomination. behave.But what i must say is,do read this article and see why you should never never trust a religious person.

THE DANGERS OF TRIBALISM

I think you recall me telling you that my mum was half  Rwandese in one of my articles. Would that be Hutu?. What I know is that one of her parents was Ugandan of Rwandese origin.

Anyway, I'm disturbed by this statement: "the Rwandan government is dominated by ethnic Tutsis." If government workers and department heads are hired on a merit system--meaning, applicants for government system take tests to determine their intellectual qualifications for government service, then that would, at least in part, reduce the dominance of Tutsi domination.  This should be combined with "affirmative action" to give some preferences to Hutus in the actual hiring--provided that they meet basic qualifications for employment.

The problem here is: should ethnicity be reported to make sure that Hutus get that preference? Or should there be no mention of ethnicity and hire strictly on academic qualifications?

I prefer the latter. In the U.S. they had problems with white people, in order to get certain benefits reserved for American Indians, to claim that they were half Indian--which qualified them for the benefits.  Well, how does one prove or disprove whether one is half Indian?  Likewise, a Tutsi could claim that he's Hutu.  How that could be proved or disproved? 

I think we agree that the concept of tribe and ethnicity should be done away with and more emphasis be placed on intellectual qualities.

"I'm going back to my house,"

"Thunderbird" is mentioned in this article  .Thunderbird wine, as they say, never saw a grape.  It's alcohol and artificial flavours.   Go here to read more about Thunderbird:
The important thing about this article is that one can go from the lowest depths of hopelessness to a place of prominence.

I'm sure you (my readers) know a number of alcoholics. Alcohol destroys brain cells which not only causes memory loss and difficulty in processing information, but for the subconscious part of the brain, lowers the ability to fight disease, and causes loss of efficient performance of all the body's systems and organs. 

 Brain cells in the speech centers cause slurred speech--even with sober alcoholics--very similar to those who have had strokes. Plus, alcohol is expensive because governments like to pile on the taxes on it.

Back when I was going through my teenage age, I knew that if I dealt with my severe depression by drinking alcohol that would lead to my death. 

I dealt with depression and loneliness as I've been doing and as most of the brave/smart/intellectuals are doing—that’s getting myself on the keyboard and writes, read news, chat with friends and of course try my chances of developing new ideas that am not letting anyone have access now. 

In this way, I have been secured from the danger of alcoholism.

Finally do read this wonderful story.

WHAT MY CRITICS SHOULD DO BEFORE HITTING ME WITH INSULTS?

It's 20th April 2010. It amazes me how days go fast and eventually the year comes to its end within fortnights. That wouldn't be so bad but it pains to see that while you are growing old and weaker as you grow, nothing much you have done for both yourself, your community and the entire Country or at least for those who are big enough to create an impact on many lives across the globe. It's sad indeed especially when you are in Africa where continuous efforts are needed in almost all sectors of life to make this Dark Continent a much better place for all its sons and daughters. Please get up and do your best to make lives better than well.

Last week, I posted a remark/comment/message on my face book wall which didn't go well with most of my online friends both local, regional and globally. These included religious and non-religious friends (not entirely atheists). They warned me with strong words and some also in boxed me with some harsh words. Am now learning to give these attacks a silent treatment for my personal reasons even though they deserved an answer. What worries me most is that all the comments I got--including those from non-religious people--contained a tone of fear for religious riots, mostly from Moslems. On several occasions, my non-religious friends met me in person and requested me NOT to hit Islam, for four reasons

1) Moslems will follow you and slaughter you.

2)The Government of Uganda will suppress non-religious people if you hit on Islam. I disagree with this because the government will not suppress non-religious people if we show the contradictions between Moslem claims and Moslem actions.

3) I not only put my life in danger but since we are few in Uganda, we can easily be tracked down and chances are high of linking my actions to their group and

4) My actions will lead Moslems riots across Africa.

There is some validity to these points, but why should we fear any religious sects or cults? To be honest, I want to say that most of the non-religious people I have known don't want to discuss or even associate with any group whether rational, free-thought or even in public administration affaires. Non-believers are down to Earth people, they enjoy laying back and enjoy their coffee, beers and wines. Therefore there must be a valid point why today we are seeing more atheists, skeptics, agnostics, free-thinkers and philosophers coming out boldly and strongly to claim and demand their share of freedom and peace across the World.

And it's this point that my critics miss. My critics are failing to point their guns where they deserve to be and it's right here and this place am I forgetting our Ugandan

Am not preaching neither am I here to convert people like you may think. I have lived my atheist life peacefully with no trouble until religionists started forcing their faith down my throat; mouth and nose. Now, I have no breathing space or any other option. Am treated as a sub-human by both the Government and society on a daily basis. Do you want me to keep silent on this?

Am tired. All newspapers, radio and TV stations, all Government offices and public places, residential areas, all streets, are all full of these religious campaigns. Not only that but they go ahead to raise their mega speakers to deafening sound, I cannot listen to my sweet melodies, I cannot sleep at all because they shout to their imaginary god in the sky who cannot hear them.

I must now tell those religionists and my fellow non-religious critics that before you tell me to tone down and clean my mouth, it's now time for you to lead and tell your favourites friends whom you don't want me to offend, to consider other people's rights, freedom and peace of mind when doing their faith in action.

I mean, it's your right to have faith and worship but on the cost of my rights, freedom and peace? NO, I say that until you start having guidelines on how you do your irrational veneration to please that dormant deity in the sky; don't expect me to stop hitting at you and your not available deity.

Finally to my faithful friends, please think more about the money you are giving away to those who lie to you--promising a Heaven after your are dead without giving you a real tour of this place before you die. From now onwards, do question why you pay someone to lie to you. Don't you have better things to do with you money?