August 3, 2014 – GhanaCelebrities.Com

The God Question: A Look at the Personality of God as Revealed by the Old Testament

08/3/2014 3:57 pm

The debate has been raging on for a while now, here on GhanaCelebrities.Com and other vibrant online platforms, about the existence of a supreme being who is up there monitoring everything we do.

I believe even staunch Christians must admit that it is a fair question to ask; that who is this God who requires only absolute devotion from us his subjects, and why it is that when it comes to religion everything must be taken on blind faith. Because whenever a shred of logic is applied to this ‘House of Cards’ that is religion, everything comes crumbling down as if one ventured down Alice’s rabbit hole themselves.

Today though, this piece would look at the Holy Book itself, the Bible, and give some pretty damning examples of the personality of God as shown in the Old Testament. After that maybe it can be explained to me how such a deity deserves any shred of devotion from us as people, aside from perhaps fear of not becoming the next victims of God’s wrath.

Most of these examples are familiar to Christians already, and often their faith requires it be buried deep somewhere in the subconscious without being given much rational thought.

This article challenges you to give it that rational thought, and come out with a satisfactory explanation of why a loving God would commit murder, infanticide, genocide, and various other atrocities as laid out in the Bible itself.

1. Do Not Make Fun of the Prophet

I am sure most of us are familiar with this story. Elisha was one of God’s better prophets back in the day, having taken up the mantle from Elijah and proven himself a worthy successor.

So one day some kids made fun of Elisha for having a bald head, his feelings got a little hurt and he cursed these kids. Forgetting the overkill of how a little teasing earned these children curses, God took it a step further and sent two she-bears to devour these kids.

There were forty-two of them, 42 kids who had to leave this earth because they made fun of a man of God. Admittedly not a nice thing to do, but talk about making a mountain out of a molehill!! (2 Kings 2:23-24)

2. Senseless Murder

There lived a certain Er, son of Judah, direct ancestor of David and Jesus. ‘Er was wicked, so the Lord slew him’; that’s a direct quote from the Bible, by the way.

So Er’s brother Onan, was then coerced into marrying and having sex with his brother’s wife. Onan refused to spill his seed in his brother’s wife, out of common decency perhaps? Anyway that also displeased God, who slew Onan as well. (Geneses 38:1-10)

Samson is one of the most famous people from biblical times, and often had God’s favour on him in all endeavours. He once gave a riddle to some Phillistines who were pals with his wife Delilah, and they made a bet as to whether they could answer or not. The bet was that the loser would supply the other 30 pieces of cloth.

Delilah wheedled the answer out of Samson and gave it to her pals. So the spirit of the Lord came unto Samson, literally; who then went out and killed thirty men, took their clothes, and used it to settle his debt. (Judges 14:1-19)

After being rescued from Egypt, the Israelites admittedly caused God a lot of problems with their constant whining and unfaithfulness, and God as usual responded by killing as many of his ‘chosen people’ as he could.

Somewhere in Numbers two elders challenged Moses, saying as to how he was lording himself over the rest of the Israelites despite the fact they haven’t seen this land flowing with milk and honey he promised.

Moses, of course, was displeased, and made a complaint to God. God responded, opening the ground to swallow these men who dared challenge Moses, taking their entire tribes along with them for good measure.

Some other Israelites saw it fit to complain about why God would kill so many people, but God failed to see their point, striking down 14,700 people, all the while failing to see the irony of killing people for complaining about his earlier killing. (Numbers 16:1-49)

The Only Time It is RIGHT to LEAK Seks Tapes & Photos of an Ex-Partner Is…

08/3/2014 1:40 pm

by Chris-Vincent Agyapong, Founding Editor

My views may sometimes be widely rejected but the truth behind such views live to see those who accept them through, serving as a guiding principle.

Many of us live within several layers of morality, shaped by our upbringing, education, religion, philosophy and our sense of understanding of personal relationships.

Morality in itself is a weaker vessel and perhaps that explains why we have laws to govern human activities even though we may have several forms of morality hovering over our heads.

The weakness in morality and the reason why we cannot wholly depend on morality to guide us in certain times is the fact that, morality is arguably subject.

Just as I mentioned above, a lot of things define morality for people—meaning, what may be moral to you, may be immoral to me, and this actually leaves us with a weaker vessel of control.

Over the last few days, we’ve seen several seks tapes, videos and photos of people having been leaked, which have puzzled the conscience of many of us. And I have read/heard people using the morality argument to pathetically justify these leaks.

Looking at these leaks with the subjective lenses of morality may mean that, those who did these awful things should have no regrets—as they have not been immoral, according to their own standards. Remember, morality is subjective—to some greater extent.

So the argument that you cannot leak indecent photos and videos of an ex-partner on the grounds of morality is pretty weak and without strict laws to prohibit people from doing this, some people may in fact assume they have a “RIGHT” to leak such things.

The way we’ve so far looked at morality as being subjective and somewhat shaped by an individual’s own mind also permits that, some people may see these actions as perfectly fine—nothing immoral about them.

But then, there is a bigger catch on morality. There is something called objective morality which does not conform to the rules of subjectivity.

No reasonable person can stand up to argue that raping of a child in any part of the world is not immoral, no matter where such a person’s sense of morality germinates from. This is what objective morality is; certain things are plainly WRONG—no matter where and who is looking at it.

New Music: Beyonce Feat. Nicki Minaj – ‘Flawless’

08/3/2014 12:55 pm

by Edith Osei Bonsu

From BeyondGossip.Com

Beyonce and Nicki Minaj has teamed up for the first time on the remix of the song “Flawless”.

Lifted from Beyonce’s fifth self-titled solo studio album, ‘Flawless’ is the fourth single released off the ‘Beyonce’.

An apt title for the track, the song is indeed flawless. Beyonce addresses the infamous elevator fight between Solange and Jay Z on ‘Flawless’ remix.

Nicki Minaj rap complemented the track in making it ‘Flawless’. The Young Money signee completely nailed it as she delivered the best rap verse ever.

‘Flawless’ remix is miles better than the original. But we shouldn’t really be surprised as Beyonce + Nicki Minaj = SLAYAGE.

Listen to ‘Flawless’ after the jump…

What’s Killing Ghanaian Celebrity Marriages? Part 1

08/3/2014 12:43 pm

by Edith Osei Bonsu

In recent years a peculiar malady has spread throughout many countries with amazing speed. News sources call it “Divorce Epidemic,” “Divorce Fever,” “Split Fever.” According to many reports, divorce is now prevalent than ever. The rate at which marriages are collapsing cannot be compared to that of decades or centuries ago.

The “Divorce Epidemic” takes place among the people we will refer to as ‘commoners’. However, a good proportion of this great pandemic strikes within celebrity marriages. One would ask; why don’t celebrity marriages last for long, upon all the money (if there is any) and fame they enjoy.

In the western world, many celebrity marriages keep collapsing due to several reasons best known to them. Among several others, I can possibly name Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom, Robin Thicke and Paula Patton, Big Sean and Naya Rivera, Nicholas Hoult and Jennifer Lawrence.

Back here in our courtyard, there have been quite a number of celebrity marriages that never worked. When I hear the reasons behind such cases and the number of years the marriages lasted, it makes me squirm and wonder why they got themselves into this in the very first place.

Marriage is unquestionably one of the most difficult and complicated enterprises that one can ever get into. It’s a different ball game altogether from just being in a relationship when you find yourself in it. Without putting proper measures in place to sustain it, you are surely bound to fail.

Over the world, celebrities have had their share in this divorce pandemic to which Ghana isn’t exempted. However, the case seems to be gaining stands nowadays with marriages lasting like 2 years.

I remember I once watched an interview which Pascaline Edwards was the guest. On the issue of marriage, she made it known that marriage is like buying a shoe; you drop it somewhere when you feel it’s tight on you. According to her, you have to continue with this act till you get the right one.

Among many other factors, one that dominates the divorce saga is the time that these celebrities do not have for their partners and family.

The man with the silky voice who can actually grease the wheels of love with his syrup-laden Highlife tunes and slushy love songs could not even sustain his first marriage. If you care to know, I’m talking about Kwabena Kwabena.

MUST READ: Mastering Tolerance is the Way Forward | Most Africans LACK this…

08/3/2014 8:55 am

by Chris-Vincent Agyapong, Founding Editor

Many parts of Africa especially Ghana has been stagnant for many decades—in relation to ideas, development and wellbeing and this is simply because we’ve fixed old minds in new bodies.

We talk of generations when in fact we are talking about different layers of ourselves without any gap in thinking, attitude, posture and the way we see things.

My mother’s generation is no major way different to mine, in terms of how we view things and respond to things—despite having been born many years apart.

We so much cherish this thing we call “being an African” which mostly does not mean anything more than, being stuck with archaic mind set, failing to find and embrace the new world order—with tolerance being the most important aspect of this order.

Being tolerant does not mean you have to be what the other person is, in fact or in assumption. All it means is, you have to have a wider perspective to the extent that even though you may disagree with the other person, you respect the person enough to accord him or her enough mileage to operate freely.

It is true that we are most comfortable when with our own people, our own food and the ideas we’ve known and accepted for many years. But if you wouldn’t want to eat a food prepared and kept for 10 years (no matter how delicious it was then), why should you not open yourself to alterations, why can’t you have the ideas you came in contact with many years ago challenged and changed, if possible?

Tribal segregation which dominates activities in many parts of Africa shows how intolerant many of us are today—-we cannot even forget the labeling and embrace each other or give each other enough rope to freely operate.

As of today, it is still an abomination for certain groups of people to marry certain groups in Ghana (don’t tell me you don’t know about this), and you wouldn’t be able to trace the source of this “intolerance” to even a decade, it goes as back as centuries. We live by the same rule which has no real benefit for our today’s well-being, development and general sense of purpose.

In the face of contemporary ideas, women empowerment, human autonomy and liberal views which have become accentuated in the settings of others, many of us protest these values, capable of making us better people for no other reason than relying on outdated mind set, cached in “Being an African”.

Simple things like sex toys are not left to individual preference, but remain a taboo for a woman to keep or be seen with one. And if you poke for the real justification on which this gross intolerance lies, you wouldn’t find anything, perhaps except, it is not part of our culture as Africans. No one can for sure define what this “being an African” means, yet it is evoked every time we want to stand up against liberal ideas which have great tendencies to shake the core of our internal weak structures—and make us better people.

Search