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Post by messenger on Mar 21, 2004 0:25:48 GMT -5
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Post by feelthelove on Mar 24, 2004 0:48:35 GMT -5
I thought it meant head creator
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Post by ScottLaRock on Mar 24, 2004 18:19:25 GMT -5
Jah is the lite , Do you believe?
I'm curious what has lead you to Jah ? Was it the music ? Do you claim a religion ? I was raised Luthern , But no more ( 15 years Jah Jah been on me). I tire of the whole system of the church and Society. Society is a joke. Babylon is falling!
Rasta is a way of life . True ? I feel Jah guiding me , but I dont claim to be Rasta . I struggle daily with this , cuz the GOoDness and the truth that is Rasta is the closest thing to my beliefs. But Im alone here in Toledo, Ohio with my beliefs and my way of life . Around here BADNESS is glorified . People dont know how to take me. I try and stay on a GOoD , positive path. But the GOoD path sometimes is the hard path , ya know . I read daily and the music is a guide , but I have no one here to teach me . So I have trouble claiming Im a Rasta cuz I have a long foggy path a head of me !
I give thanks to the MOST HIGH for this path, for this life .
I was just curious how you all live , think. Trying to talk , conversate, reason.
Love and Strength
IMEN
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Post by messenger on Mar 24, 2004 21:38:34 GMT -5
I am living my second life.
It may sound strange but it's true.
I grew up in the catholic church but about 25 years ago I decided that I didn't agree with their teachings so I have had a personal relationship with jesus, very personal in the last four years.
I got out of a bad relationship and decided to love me for a year, in that one year I enjoyed, learned and lived like I've never lived before, I decided to take two years for just me and ended up accomplishing more in a year than I had in 20.
Jesus has guided me and still stand before me, I am a new author and I have my own gifts business.
We are all great!
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Post by ScottLaRock on Mar 25, 2004 15:34:44 GMT -5
Yes Celebrate! We all are Great! Do you struggle with society as I do ? With our leaders ? With this so called system ? With our lack of concern over our Mother Earth and how we take her for granted as we slowly kill her . Do you worry what we leave our youth , as I do ? The funny thing is people give me a hard time cuz of how I live my life and the things that they say I preach about. How can they be so blinded. Is it so odd that i want to be a GOoD man ? In this society it is odd. But it should'nt be . People need to wake up. Focus on the lite of GOoD. But I guess that is the problem people lack focus. They cant see past their vanity.Everyday I pray for focus and clarity and strength and forgiveness. I worry about this Earth. Our youth, to them Im sorry, they deserve so much more. Im sorry about the rambling. You can have the forum back. Strength
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Post by messenger on Mar 25, 2004 16:28:35 GMT -5
There are no more struggles for me! My light is very very bright now, and if I follow my guide it will be that way forever. I am very worried about our youth, they are our future! Their world is turning twice as fast as ours and a lot of them are slipping off of the earth at record speed. I don't really worry about what we leave them because the knowledge is here, they better ask somebody! Everyone has a life to live! As long as they have been introduced to Jesus, which the news is everywhere. And know that all he ask in return is Love! Then I don't worry. I just Pray It's nice to know you! I too, live a good clean life. Isn't life wonderful!
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Post by reggaemom on Mar 30, 2004 0:23:08 GMT -5
To I i think there is good in all faiths but it's when people try to make all these rules to live by that the true meaning gets lost some people are more concern with how many attend their church rather then are you reaching people. Rasta to me is the one faith that just excepts People of all races and shapes and back grounds. I grew up learning about the rasta faith from an Older rasta man I met while living on Venice beach when i was young and all he taught me is what i apply to life now and believe me it has gotten me through some tuff times..with rasta it is UNITY!!! peace and blessing to all ....
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Post by ScottLaRock on Mar 30, 2004 6:42:01 GMT -5
People find me odd!
But the thing that is really odd to INI is how the church ( insert religion) is the biggest haters. I'll preach GOoDness to my children. The EARTH is my church . ;D
I pray for all the haters
Imen
Love
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Post by feelthelove on Apr 19, 2004 20:40:37 GMT -5
hey guys,
I found the lord at a very young age and I'm so so grateful I excepted jesus christ as my very own personal savior and he is my every thing and when I excepted him as my personal savoir he baptize me with the holy spirit which is my guide my comforter my healer and what ever I need He is to me ,he will be just what you need and this is not just talk I have lived these things I believe in the bible and I stand on his promises and my faith is what gets me through every situation in my live .....without the lord I would be loss I go to church and I see things there that others who are not as strong in their faith my call hypocites but I am not there for them I am there for the lord and you grow to that level through prayer and trust in the lord....it 's nothing the lord and I can't do together.... I don't worry about the different religons because if they are of the lord then we all are the body of lord......... just get that personal relationship with the lord pray pray and pray some more and he will talk back to you don't worry about the world that's the lords battle the most important thing in this world is accepting christ as your personal savior and prayer.......
God Bless
FTL
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Post by JAHchant on Aug 2, 2004 11:45:57 GMT -5
hey scott la rock! (big up scott la rock by the way) i can relate to you heavily, im in the mid west too. so we are dealing with the same lazy ignorence. im starting to think that laziness has become an epidemic here in the states. i think you are aligned with your true path,just be patient and strive to make it better. use your gifts from within(intuition,talents,consiousness,positivity,exc) peace!
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Post by Jahman on Dec 15, 2004 13:33:11 GMT -5
Rasta is many different ways to many different people, I agree with what the brother said up top that what you know about life now to apply to life later, to I Rasta is like what Bob say it "like a Lion how long it take to grow up from begining to end", Rasta is a process also. Jah Bless!
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Post by rapadura on Jun 7, 2007 7:01:23 GMT -5
The aim and "why" of Rastafarian faith
We must look to the almighty Jah, thank God who has raised man above all creatures and endowed him with reason and intelligence.
Great knowledge and reasoning
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Post by kaya on Aug 2, 2007 15:16:22 GMT -5
Rastafarians don't give up the fight to live in Ethiopia By Paul Salopek
Desmond Martin, a Jamaican leader of the Rasta community in Ethiopia, displays a picture of himself with reggae singer Bob Marley, who visited Ethiopia in 1979. In the photo, Marley is front and center and Martin is fourth from the left.
Ethiopia's Haile Selassie welcomed Rastafarians.
Rastafarian roots
What: Born in the slums of Jamaica in the 1920s, Rastafarianism began as a black-consciousness movement that deployed biblical prophecy against the white racism and colonialism of the times. Its early leaders advocated the return of slave descendants to Africa. Ethiopian connection: When Haile Selassie — then known as Ras Tafari Mekonen — was crowned emperor of never-colonized Ethiopia in 1930, both he and his country became spiritual inspirations to the movement. In the 1950s, he granted the religion's followers 1,250 acres of land for settlement in Shashamane, a savanna town 150 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
The problem: Selassie was deposed by a military coup in 1974. The army murdered him the following year, though most Rastafarians believe he is immortal and hence never died. SHASHAMANE, Ethiopia -- The promised land of the world's Rastafarians can be found along a narrow highway in Ethiopia's ancient Rift Valley, a landscape of scattered trees with trunks the size of houses and fields of grain that shimmer in the sunlight like a bronze haze.
The setting is beautiful -- Edenic even. But as with the original Eden, it isn't without its pitfalls.
"We've been waiting a long, long time to become Ethiopians," said Desmond Martin, a Jamaican pioneer who settled here more than 30 years ago on land donated by Emperor Haile Selassie. "We love Ethiopia. Ethiopia is our holy land. But we're still not considered to be from this place."
Best known for their reggae music, dreadlocked hair, colorful clothes and copious marijuana smoking, the followers of the Rastafarian faith celebrated one of their major holidays July 23, the birthday of Selassie, the former Ethiopian ruler whom Rastas worship as a black messiah.
But in Shashamane, a roadside town in Ethiopia that the Rastafarians consider their Jerusalem, the festivities were bittersweet.
Almost half a century after the first 12 Caribbean settlers migrated here, advancing a Rastafarian dream that the world's African diaspora must return to the spiritual motherland, few if any Rastas have been granted citizenship.
Worse still, the pilgrims lost more than 95 percent of their imperial land grant during the 1970s, when a socialist Ethiopian regime confiscated all but 30 acres of their holdings. Throw in assorted famines, revolutions, official harassment, deep local skepticism about the divinity of Selassie and persistent suspicion of their religious "herb" smoking, and it is surprising that any still hang on.
Yet about 200 to 300 stubborn Rastafarian families from all over the globe do -- an eclectic community that includes nurses from Caribbean states, clothing salesmen from Britain and artists from the United States. A few have gone into business in Shashamane, opening hotels and food shops. Others have set up tiny development organizations whose walled compounds look like those of any other aid group in Africa, except for the occasional blasts of highly danceable music and whiffs of marijuana.
The local townspeople, who like most Ethiopians tend to be culturally conservative, view the religious pilgrims with a mixture of curiosity and condescension.
"They are good people who think that Shashamane is the blessed land of the blacks," said Taye Kebede, a Sunday school teacher at the town's Ethiopian Orthodox church. "But we do not like their drug use. They are creating a market for marijuana, and our farmers are growing that instead of potatoes."
Kebede also felt obliged to dispute the Rastafarians' perception of Selassie: "We know him better than they do. He was just a king, and toward the end a very autocratic one."
During the 1980s, the Rastafarian community was singled out for ostracism because of its close association with the emperor, Martin said. It shrank to fewer than 50 members. Some sold their clothes to buy food during the country's notorious famines, he said.
Today, under a frail democratic government, life is much better.
The influx of Rasta religious seekers is growing slowly. Many are skilled workers who bring jobs and a trickle of puzzled tourists to bustling Shashamane. Thousands of visitors flocked to the town for Selassie's birthday -- a Rastafarian Christmas that features rollicking reggae concerts. Rita Marley, the widow of reggae superstar Bob Marley, has joined local Rastafarian aid organizations in funding a school and clinic.
Still, for many Rastafarian homesteaders, the lack of Ethiopian citizenship and the loss of their lands continue to rankle.
Notorious for its prickly nationalism, the government is promising to study citizenship for Rastafarians who have been in the country for at least four years. The land, however, is long gone -- carved up and crammed with the mud huts and tiny gardens of local Ethiopians, whose numbers are evenly divided between Muslims and Orthodox Christians.
"Some people come here expecting a paradise," said Earl "Chips" Sobers, 44, a Rastafarian road worker from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago who migrated to Ethiopia five years ago. "It isn't. This is lion country. You have to be a lion to live here."
The Seattle Times
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Post by kaya on Aug 2, 2007 15:18:04 GMT -5
The man who inspired Bob Marley
Thursday, July 19, 2007
By ROBERT BIESELIN STAFF WRITER
Monday marks what would have been the 115th birthday of Haile Selassie (1892-1975), who served as king of Ethiopia and the inspiration of Rastafarianism.
Who was Haile Selassie?
Haile Selassie I was the emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 and recognized by Rastafarians as the incarnation of God. He was removed from power following a famine that left 200,000 people dead. Selassie died while under house arrest
What's the connection between Selassie and Rastafarianism?
Inspired by the Bible and Marcus Garvey's "Back to Africa" movement, Rastafarians were Jamaicans who believed God would incarnate himself as an African monarch. They saw Selassie, whose name means 'power of the trinity," as this incarnation. Selassie didn't confirm their claims but never opposed the religion.
What are the core beliefs of Rastafarianism?
Followers aren't required to join a particular church and follow the religion with an independent spirit. They believe in Jah, or God, and reject materialism. They also speak of a oneness with God as expressed in the saying "I and I." Rastafarians adhere to a diet of natural foods, similar to kosher in its rejection of pork and shellfish.
What is the significance of dreadlocks?
The growth of dreadlocks has its roots in Hebrew Bible texts, including one from Numbers that says: "He must let the hair of his head grow long."
What is the role of marijuana in religious practice?
Rastafarians believe marijuana enhances religious observance and brings them closer to God.
What has contributed to Rastafarian popularity?
Initially disdained by a majority of Jamaicans, the religion grew more popular after Selassie visited the island. The beliefs were spread through the reggae music of such artists as Bob Marley, who used Rasta themes in his lyrics. It's now viewed as a legitimate expression of African heritage and has an estimated million followers.
Sources: Jamaicans.com, "The Rastafarians," an essay by E.E. Cashmore and swagga.com.
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