THE AFRICAN SAGE

Introduction The beatification of Sr. Irine Stephan in Kenya was a beautiful thing. Apart from the celebration of life of one who is believed to have lived an exemplary life, the beatification drew out protestant outrage and tongue wagging. We thank God for such an opportunity to dialogue. It is sad that instead of dialogue, Protestants stupefied in self-righteousness sought to condemn without first seeking understanding. I was born and raised as a Catholic; although my personal thoughts on religion are not permissible among staunch Catholics, I cherish the church of my mum and trust that it is a positive vehicle for social transformation and spiritual edification. In this write up, I wish to address some of the issues my protestant friends raised. Religious Knowledge Before we dialogue on anything religious, it is always good to first ascertain what genre of knowledge we are dealing with. Religious knowledge is not philosophical knowledge because while the former is arriv...

Human beings are funny creatures, funny in the sense that they are or they have made themselves the centre of the universe. We live in an anthropomorphic Universe; in this Universe, human beings think they are supreme over all other things and the universe does not exist for any other reason but to sustain human beings. So among creatures, human beings place themselves on the pedestal. At a personal level, every petty human being thinks he or she is better than others; self aggrandizement. Among the human beings, there are those that believe in God (Theists) and those that do not believe in such (Atheists). Those who believe in God think they right and atheists are lost ignorant souls. On the other hand, atheists ask for proof that there is a God or evidence of revelation. Truth is, Theists cannot provide tangible proof that there is God. The truth is that no one has ever seen, touched or interacted with God in a manner as to demonstrate how God looks like. The only true posit...

It has become a common phenomenon, pollsters coming up with percentages and creating stories that have profound effects on the psyche of the nation. Social science research often involves collecting data in order to capture the views of individuals. However, social sciences distinguish themselves from common sense and pure rumor mongering because of adhering to scientific principles. Science as a way of knowing is unique because of effort exerted to ensure replicability of findings, objectivity, logical reasoning, purposefulness, empirical evidence, clearly defined methodology, systematic study process and ethical consideration throughout the inquiry process. For any research to be worthy of the scientific label, it has to be thoroughly and systematically thought through in such a manner that others doing a similar study can get similar results subject to a given margin of error. Pollsters in Kenya continue to baffle me; they failed in getting presidential polls right but that...