[Ugnet] Re: Opondo: Bukenya had every right to visit shrine

[musamize ssemakula]

Bukenya had every right to visit shrine

THE WRITER: Ofwono Opondo THE visit by vice-president Prof Gilbert Bukenya to an alleged traditional shrine in Masaka to seek out the gods two weeks ago caused uproar across the social spectrum. Many have described the visit in negative ways, and even demanded that he apologises, and seeks �cleansing,� from the church. Unfortunately, most of the critics are themselves members of different soothsaying clubs passing for religion, but pretend theirs are superior to traditional shrines. Also, although many of them believe in the Ugandan constitution, which permits freedom of worship, they seem to think this freedom extends only to the so-called �established enlightened religions.� The pious criticism from self-appointed prophets is a flagrant attempt to muzzle the mind and its liberty of inquiry that ought to be rejected. These pseudo elites are trying to behave like early Catholicism, which condemned and killed Galileo for stating that the earth was round. The constitution allows freedom of movement, and association of persons, except with unlawful societies. But the fundamental point in this debate ought to be the legitimacy of the much claimed superiority of modern religions. Before criticising Bukenya and traditional shrines, the bigots ought to know that Christianity itself was a forgery pilfered from the sacred books and system of Zoroaster of Persia to invoke angels, devils and hell-fire in order to invent the infernal doctrines of Original sin and eternal damnation. It is this counterfeit that has passed as religion for centuries until its myth on creation and claim that the world was built in �six days,� was shuttered by the science of evolution. The hullabaloo is reminiscence of the Christians of old before Constantine�s Eddict of Milan (313), which restored religious freedom to pagans and heretics, but which was quickly repudiated by the same Christians because it challenged their privileged positions. Religious intolerance enacted in the famous code of Theodosius stated thus �We desire that all the people under our clemency should live by that religion, which divine Peter the apostle, is said to have given the Romans. We desire heretics and schismatists be subjected to various fines. We decree also that we shall cease making sacrifices to the gods and if anyone commits such a crime, let them be stricken with the avenging sword.� And by the various laws of Constanius, Gratian, Theodosius, Valentian and Honorius, the so-called pagan privileges, holidays, temples, and revenues were either abolished or appropriated by the church! Pagans and heretics who did not believe in Christianity were denied the right to make wills, receive property, join civil or military offices, and barred from being witnesses in the courts of law. �Those who sacrifice and worship idols and betray the faith and profane holy baptism are shut from association and from giving testimony. They may not give testimony, and may not make a will nor enter upon any inheritance, they may not be made anyone�s heir,� Theodosius�s code further sated. Similarly, the Synod of Verona 1184 imposed on bishops the duty to search for pagans and heretics in their dioceses and hand them over to secular authority to be punished for believing in heresy. While Pope Paul III (1542) established the Roman Congregation of the Inquisition (Holy Office), Pope Pius V (1919) actually decreed and instituted the Congregation of the index of prohibited books. Pius then established in every diocese a board of censors and a vigilance committee to search and report on writings and persons �tainted,� with heresy, much like those demanding that Bukenya apologises to the church. It s hould be remembered too that gone are the days when a bishop�s testimony was conclusive evidence, or when it was a crime to refuse baptism, relapse to idolatry, eat meat in Lent or claim to have received baptism. From the shrines can come civilisation as evidenced by pagan Greeks, who unfamiliar with the Hebrew revelation of the Divine Right of Kings anointed by priests to rule mankind, invented democracy. Democracy considered a heresy by priests those days is now internationally recognised as a self-evident proposition that all just powers of government come from the consent of the governed. Although the news about Moses and his divine laws on Mt Sinai never reached the Greeks early enough, they nevertheless became the beacon of science, sculpture, art, design, mathematics, physics, and medicine, among others. Undeterred by priestly ban and Popish Inquisition, the Greeks sought the secrets of creation and nature to explain the riddles of the universe to make the forces o f nature serve humanity. Hippocrates the father of medicine, Aristotle the philosopher, Hipparchus, who calculated the procession of the equinoxes in 130 B.C, Isaac Newton, who discovered the law of gravity, and Euclid the of geometry are all in this category. As a politician, vice president, and a senior medical doctor and researcher, Bukenya had every right to visit whoever he feels is valuable. In any case, promoters of modernism never waited for black Africans to go to Europe, but came here to �pacify,� us. Ends Published on: Friday, 24th December, 2004

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