The Nomad: Here's where IXPninja's 'color green theory' comes in.
um... I don't have a "color green theory". If I did it would be that wealthy people tend to see people in terms of how much money they have and apply that to their worth and value as a person.
But again, I don't.
But as far as what I think you were getting at...
The reality is that gods and goddesses ALWAYS arise out of human need. We "needed" to know where we came from. So the "God of the gaps" came in and told us we were princes and princesses of the universe. It is easier to buy in if you are oppressed because what's being offered... the "value proposition" if you will... is salvation. The black people have the highest demand for salvation which is why I believe (could be wrong) we have a greater tendency to seek religions in which a just God will save us and possibly mete out justice to those who have wronged us. When you can't do that yourself because the people who wronged you also make the rules and simply "excused themselves" from financial responsibility (actually they were the ones who got reparations because America felt bad for taking their slaves away) there is an equal and opposite reaction that is expressed through the divine scales of justice.
What whites need to understand is that they created this. And they continue to create this by their opposition and hostility towards black people. You can call it karma but it is simply the universal equation attempting to find balance.
What is God? As GA said, that's not our word. The word in Hebrew that was translated to God is El or Eloah or Elohim. El simply means power and can apply to earthly powers such as rulers, kings, judges. Might is the same thing as power. So anyone who is mighty is a god. This is literal truth, not religious spin. If you were Hebrew you referred to other humans using this same word which would now not tolerate the use of outside of this one singular context. But this is simply an ignorance of our roots and culture.
In Hebrew thought the AL+MIGHT+Y was the same as ALL+POWER+FUL. This is where elohim comes in. It didn't mean gods plural. It was referring to a plurality of power or might. They meant for this honorific to only designate one person. That was Yahweh or Jah.
But what was Jah? To them? I'll tell you that Jah to me is Jamaica... It is Africa. It is the Earth. It is the molecules, atoms, quantum particles that are literally everything. Jah is power expressed in different forms. Whether those forms are "Divine" to you depends on your perspective. I may not agree with the theory of intelligent design or creation but, to me, evolution is "divine". I simply had to reorganize my vocabulary to see the beauty and divinity in what humans often destroy as if trash.
But just as Jah is an energy that can become anything it wants to (the I will be what I will be), it can become our rage, our will, our justice, our wrath, our mercy, our happiness, our peace, our warrior, our benevolence, and everything else that we can be or represent. Everyone is God because we are all divine expressions of the Alef. As there was "War in heaven" there is war on Earth because the Universe will always seek balance, whether through physical distress, or ideological.
When you create a villain you simultaneously create the idea, perhaps yet to be realized, of a savior. But this is nothing new. This "shit hand" is something that is absolutely relative. Once upon a time there were slaves. Women were also treated, as a kind of servile class in certain societies. The whole biblical treatment, starting with Eve, I believe was a patriarchal attack on women and their influence. It was designed, IMHO, to diminish them and their significance so that weaker men could rule over all.
Gods were many things. For many, the gods were their ancestors. Easter and Western religions. Its' just disguised better. But everyone on earth draws a connection with God or gods, including the idea of demigods or gods incarnated as humans. So on multiple levels it would not be strange for Rastas to say Selassie is God. He was a mighty king; perhaps the mightiest that they know. And what they consider might may be different from your consideration. But it's only wrong if you don't understand the definition of the words. And yes, Rastas needed an example of might that they could also personify. That's why HIM is divine. Black woman and child is also divine. But who was it that created this? Rastas? No. Rastas simply observed it.
It was his conflict with whites that proved HIM worthy. It demonstrated his strength and his ability to protect his people as a conduit for Jah. You may not ever fully understand this, but this is how all gods are made; including Yahweh and Jesus. The Israelites needed a savior who could defeat the regional powers and if they were going to fight then they needed something to believe at the core that strengthened their resolved. A symbol. Christians needed salvation from sin; still do. And again, they needed a symbol who could represent victory over sin.
But was Jesus ever a "God" in the Western sense of a supernatural being? No. No, sorry to disappoint but he was merely a symbol for the power of Yahweh just as Selassie is the symbol of the power of Jah. Now what you do with that symbol is up to each individual Rasta. One of the things I've learned here is that Rastafarians aren't dogmatic, like Christians, about doctrine. There are different views and opinions. We don't all have to agree. Even the reverence for Selassie is not going to be equal. And that's okay. Because the more people try to control that the more that it is about people and their control.
So, YES, Selassie is god as he is the power of the trinity.
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