Dear Editor,
Who am I to dispute people’s opinion? I have a few questions though.
1.) Why don’t people finish what they start, no matter how impossible the task may seem? 2.) Why is it that so very often when as we say “our mind runs on a certain person who you have not seen in a long time” that person appears before you?
3.) Why is it that so very often little children who cannot help themselves are spared from eminent danger?
4.) And, why is that scientists are going to church more frequently, and doctors and surgeons more and more are praying with families before performing operations?
Why these questions? Because I read on page 25 of The Daily Herald of 24-10-2016, that the political scientist Tennyson Joseph is against religious mumbo-jumbo being taught in the schools of Barbados. If the picture that goes along with the article is that of Tennyson Joseph and with the support given to the Rastafarian couple, one is inclined to believe that Mr. Joseph sympathizes the Rastafari.
I do not know when and where the discussion about abolishing teaching the Bible in schools started, but I am sure it was not started by people of the Caribbean. I stand to be corrected. I will also dispute that the term “mumbo jumbo” originally came from us. I will not get into any kind of back and forth concerning the teachings of the Bible, but I strongly believe that there is a whole lot less mumbo jumbo in the teachings of the Bible than in political science.
Is not Rastafari some kind of religion? Where should I put Evolution and Creation in comparison to political science? In my opinion there is no comparison. Logic would tell me that as a consequence of the teachings of the Bible. All of us who found ourselves on this earth and wanted explanations began to theorize and long after that came political science. Did a Caribbean political scientist really use the term “religious mumbo jumbo”? Where did man come from? And, if one decides man came from a monkey where did the monkey come from?
So, let us go back to the original questions. Faith should be the answer to the first question. Is the answer to the second question, because of evolution? I doubt it. And, is it not almost always that the expression in connection with the third question, Thank God or Thank You Jesus? I hope that we will ask doctors and scientists the fourth question? And, let me ask in closing, where did man’s ability to think come from?
Russell A. Simmons
