rastafari

I have been thinking about some things lately.. naturally I was raised around some rastafarian's and i've always sometimes prayed to Jah, and practiced some of the Rasta ways.. but today I was doing more research on it and I was surprized to see the in depth beliefs of rasta's.. check out this link. What do you all think about this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastafarianism

 

This month's Rolling Stone (maybe last's, I'm not sure which it was) had a big article on Bob Marley, who I've always loved (I've loved Reggae since I was 15 and a close childhood friend of mine eventually became a well respected DJ in NYC. His name is Vincent Hans. Check out WKCR online Thursday nights and Sunday mornings I believe.). Anyway, the article touched on the origin of Rastafarianism and stated that that the interpretation of the "living God" was based on an outright, documentable lie. I found it odd and wish I could remember what exactly it said, but I was reading it in the supermarket. Anyway, I came away, for lack of more information at least, being inclined to believe that it was a total crackpot religion. Of course, any "religion" that promotes peace in words and deeds and the general questioning of authority is probably going to be responbsible for a lot less damage, loss of life, and animosity than most of the world's most popular religions, but the Rasta doctrine seems kind of whacked.

 

Here it is, from the Rolling Stone article I mentioned:

The living god's name was haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, and the product of a complicated strand of history that marked the lives of Marley and Jamaica. Selassie's importance for Jamaicans began in the life of another man, Marcus Garvey -- an early-twentieth-century activist who encouraged blacks to look to their African heritage and to create their own destinies apart from the ones imposed on them by America and by European colonialism. According to a persistent myth, Garvey instructed his followers in 1927 to look to Africa for the crowning of a black king, as a sign that a messiah was at hand. In point of fact, Garvey never uttered such a prophecy, but the claim remains attributed to him to this day. In 1930, when a young man named Ras Tafari maneuvered his way onto the throne of Ethiopia, the prophecy that Garvey never proclaimed took on the power of the word made flesh for many. Selassie was the Living God, the reinstatement of the rightful Jehovah to the earth and a beacon of hope for the world's long-suffering black diaspora.

 

As much as I love the Ratafarian lifestyle and movement.. I don't believe that is God.. that's pretty far fetched. lol