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The struggle with many a rigid Logooli cultural practices

  The Logooli community is one of the deeply cultured societies – with near everything supposed to have been done as per custom – to allow another custom to follow. One example is that for a mature man (with a child or more) to be buried, there must be a house structure at home. Another is that a boy must be circumcised and nursed in father land. If maternal family decides to, the boy will have a hard time reconnecting with father people - a dent on his masculinity. There were two children who got burnt to death in a house in Nairobi. The single mother had left for night work. Elders were told that one of the children was Logooli. The other, the woman had sired with someone else. The Logooli family wanted to burry their little one and long discussed the do’s and don’ts. Of a man who died childless and the grave was placed as if he had died as a man with children. It should have been dug on the sides, the grave. A real thorn should have been thrust in his buttocks, his name go...
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God is God. Not a source of Morality.

To think of God as whether He is a determinant of morality or not in its very sense is to question His role in our lives- whether I believe in Him or not. The statement in discussion cites a situation where majority of people believe God as the source of Morality. Terming this a modern discussion- for more and more people are expected to be atheists in future-it could have been an abomination to raise such a question some years ago when every happening was related to a supernatural cause. This article is of the view that God is not the determinant of morality.

If a child was raised in a vacuum of religeous identities, the child would grow up knowing what is wrong and good alike. Long before children begin to understand meanings in words, they are already introduced to the world of cry (bad) and laugh (good). If an elder shows symptoms of discontention before a child, the child will retrieve from an activity with the sense that it is bad because my mother (that elder person) sees it so. A child only comes to know of God sometimes after such experiences when some questions seem to lack answers.

The belief in God as the Moral being raises questions to some of historical injustices that were speared in the name of Holiness. This contradicts the nature of the supposed God- of no evil. The Bible and Quran among other tales speak of killings, slavery and suffering as God sent. It is of no use therefore to say one is morally right because he believes in God for the very God may be harmful to another.

A God who does not change in Principles and ideas assumes that everything is predetermined and set for eternal. We live in a changing world of changing views. What was termed as wrong can be justified and be right. An instance to this was the traditional subordination of women. Bible writes that the man is the sole authority bread winner. Present times disaprove subordination as descrimination and equality as morally fair. Clinging to the past in the name of God would therefore be disastrous to such people and societies in adapting to changing times.

The inefficiency in God’s act and application to overall human activities creates spaces that are prone to human understanding and interpretation. Holy writings  have been identified ideological and in some instances philosophical- depending on you and how you understand.  The contradiction in God’s view of loving  everyone and still inducing judgement to wrong doers lets human to do what fits for them.


As the idea of an existence of God may be shared among many people, the idea of Him as the source of morality is prone to debate. The understanding of God that varies from one person to another can also be the interpretation of whom He is. Leaving the idea at the mercy of Him as a source of morality may be harmful to progressive universal understanding of the chaging times.

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