EXPERIENCE IS PEACE

PREPARATION IS PEACE

PREPARATION IS PEACE: ARE WE PREPARED FOR RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE?

Tolerance Is Peace: Religious Tolerance Makes God Smiles

The best form of preparation for religious tolerance is to say a big no to any action/inaction (Russett, 1974; Zelizer, 2017; Norris, 2016) that seems to discriminate (Jordanova et al., 2015; Ikizler & Szymanski, 2018) against any religious belief or faith. The Beautifully Peaceful Relationship Between Ghanaian Christians and Muslims (Abdul-Hamid, 2011) Makes God Smiles; we must protect it. Ghana is one of the countries around the globe where there is an admirable and peaceful relationship between Christians and Muslims. Unfortunately, my continued observation of our beautiful relationship has exposed some possible threats. The recent one was a unique wedding between a converted Christian lady and a Muslim Man at Techire in the Bono Region of Ghana, West Africa. The wedding (Pic 1) took place on the 30^th of June 2019.

Figure 1: Uniquely Unique Wedding at Techire, Religious Tolerance is Important

 

The chief Imam of the region started the ceremony on an excellent note by acknowledging this beautiful relationship using the program as an example. He however, unfortunately, diverted from this beautiful acknowledgement in his preaching which I suspect was not intentional. Though I am not accusing him; I see such preachings at unique and beautiful programs like that as possible threats to this beautiful, peaceful, and lovely relationship which we are all proud of. In a gathering like that bringing both faiths together peacefully, especially in a situation where one of the faiths is losing a member to the other, we must use speeches/preachings that unite us or console the losing side, but not that which add more pain. The lady is a Christian who has followed her heart beat to convert into Islam. The Imam himself acknowledged it nicely by saying that the family did very well in supporting her decision, as they did not give her any difficulty.

It is an open secret that Muslims are the ones who are mostly against their members decision to convert and marry a Christian or any other faith. I am a victim of that myself. I met a lovely Muslim lady who was deeply in love with me and was ready to marry me, but her father was against it. The negative mentalities that we create in the minds of believers of “All great religions”, like Christianity and Islam, are what normally lead to the fight for religious supremacy, but “All religions were more or less true” (Singh, 2004). I do not think that the family of the lady, and the Christians in general, were happy for losing their member to another faith. The family and the Christian community have made a painful and a difficult decision just to support her feelings and happiness as well as promote peace between Christians and Muslims.

Disrespecting her feeling/happiness or fighting against her because of that could result into a situation that no one can predict the end. Love or relationships breakup is the major reason why others commit suicide (News., 2011; O’Sullivan, 2017; Eran., 2018). I am sure that the family and the church has critically thought about that before making their decision to support her. Even before the wedding, the church members of the family came around to pray for them in order to console them. Almost all of them left immediately after that! This alone reveals the psychological or emotional pains that they were going through. So, in such a situation, I expected that anyone who preaches or gives a speech should choose a topic that would, at least, console the family and Christians who, though after losing their member, still came around to support the beautiful and uniquely unique program.

Unfortunately, the Imam chose a topic that seems to mock Christianity and rather add more pains to the already existing one. The topic was about Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; and that some even believe that Jesus himself is God. A topic that both faiths always disagree should not have been chosen for such a beautiful and unique program. The Chief Imam’s argument was that: “God is too big and powerful, He never sleeps”! To say that God became a human being to live inside the tiny womb of a woman is tantamount to limiting His powers! He wondered: “How can God who is bigger than even the whole world, be limited to just the tiny womb of a woman!”. He followed that with another question: “We all know that God does not sleep but we humans sleep; if you are saying that He became a human being and lived in the womb of a woman, are you now saying that God sleeps?”.

At this time the whole wedding ground was as silent as a cemetery! There were three (3) Rev. Sisters who also attended the program. When I turned around to look into their faces, I could see that their moods have suddenly changed when he was asking those rhetorical questions. I am sure that they would have loved to give answers to those rhetorical questions to defend their faiths but they stopped for the sake of the beautiful and unique program. I do not support either Christians or Muslims using such speeches in any program that brings both faiths together like this one.

This behavior is noted not only amongst Muslims but Christians too! Ioffe, (2016) has lamented a behavior at a dinner where Laura Ingraham conversing with colleague guests, said: “Raise your hands if you think Islam is a death cult”. She added; most of them raised their hands and in a political manner, each of them decided to explain to her that “unlike Islam, Christianity is inherently a religion of love”. Like that diner which was turned into a religious political ground, this uniquely peaceful and loving wedding ceremony was also religiously politicized. So, in short, the Imam gave a discriminative speech in that unique program that brought members of both faiths together peacefully. Such discriminative speeches must not be used during such important and uniquely unique gatherings, they are threats to PEACE.

To conclude, all religions on earth are supposed to be “Inherently respectful”; tolerating each other faith (Singh, 2004). We can only prove this respect and tolerance during such uniquely unique gatherings that bring people of different faiths together. I am from a uniquely unique and democratic family; apart from me and my parents who are Catholics, my siblings are in different Christian denominations and the rest of the family belong to different faiths. On the maternal side too, apart from two of my uncles and their children, the rests are all Muslims; but since childhood I have never heard of any violence amongst any of us. We still respect ourselves and tolerate each other’s faith. Whatever I am saying here is not intended to support any religious supremacy; but to help cement the beautiful relationship between not only different faiths in Ghana (especially Christianity and Islam) but around the globe. Thank you for Reading, share your comments.

References

Abdul-Hamid, M. (2011). CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM RELATIONS IN GHANA: A MODEL FOR WORLD DIALOGUE AND PEACE. Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies. Vol. 1, Issue 1. Retrieved from https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ijrs/article/view/90912 on 25.07.19 at 10:52PM.

Eran. (2018). The Center for Supportive Relationships: Relationship Problems Are A Leading Cause for Suicide. Education, Medicine, Uncategorized. Retrieved at 4:52PM on 06.07.19 from http://www.supportiverelationships.org/home/relationship-problems-are-a-leading-cause-for-suicide/.

Ikizler, A., S., & Szymanski, D., M. (2018). Discrimination, religious and cultural factors, and Middle Eastern/Arab Americans' psychological distress. J Clin Psychol. 74(7):1219-1233. doi: 10.1002/jclp.22584. Epub 2018 Jan 11.

Ioffe, J. (2016). If Islam Is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity. Retrieved from https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/14/if-islam-is-a-religion-of-violence-so-is-christianity/ on 04.07.19 at 6:43PM.

News., ABS-CBN (2011). Love is number one reason for suicide: expert. Lifestyle. Retrieved from https://news.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/09/26/11/love-number-one-reason-suicide-expert on 06.07.19 at 4:32PM.

Norris, C. (2016). The cost of inaction in response to violence and conflict. RISING Global Peace Forum. Retrieved from http://news.trust.org/item/20161115101101-6zimw on 24.07.19 at 3:02PM.

O’Sullivan, L. (2017). The Conversation: Teenage Heartbreak Can Kill: Breakups are the leading cause of suicide among teens. Demographics, Mental Health, Psychology & Romance. Retrieved from https://www.inverse.com/article/35834-teen-breakups-leading-cause-of-suicide on 06.07.19 at 4:37PM.

Singh, A., R., & Singh, S., A. (2004). Gandhi on Religion, Faith and Conversion: Secular Blueprint Relevant Today. Mens Sana Monogr. 2(1): 79–88.

Russett, B., M. (1974). From Peace Research to Peace Action: Some Pertinent Ethnical Questions. Bulletin of Peace Proposal. 5(4): 366-371.

Zelizer, C. (2017). 15 Actions for a More Peaceful and Just 2018. PCDN. Retrieved on 25.07.19 at 3:16PM from https://pcdnetwork.org/resources/15-actions-for-a-more-peaceful-and-just-2017-please-add-your-own-suggestions/.

SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

Your Daily Self-Assessment for Peace

To live a peaceful life on earth, then self-assessment should be part of daily activities. If we are able to do any one of these in the peace calendar below daily, they we are contributing to peace.

How to Self-Assess Sabotage: The Silent Killer

The oxford dictionaries define sabotage as: “Deliberately destroy, damage, or obstruct (something), especially for political or military advantage”.

Everyone can sabotage you in life to make life very bitter for him/her! It not surprising to find coworkers, friends, and, shamefully, family members trying to pull us down (Adam, 2013). Saboteurs are dangerous because they don’t open up that they are sabotaging their victim(s) and it is because of the legal implications associated with sabotage. This makes it very difficult to identify them. Meanwhile, Novi Survey Report on 12^th September, 2018 revealed that: “An enemy that is visible is far easier to fight than one that hides well”. We can be sabotaged by others in various divers’ ways in multifarious facets of our lives such as in our relationships, works/businesses, politics, religion, and so on (Adam, 2013).

He added that “When we understand what’s going on around us, it makes it easier to call it what it is and move on” with our lives. So, it is better to self-assess your family, work, political party, country, religion, race/tribe, profession and so on for any possible form of sabotage/apartheid. This will help you to also self-assess how to deal with it or accept it as it is and move on with your life. It can be undoubtedly painful to realized that the one that you love most, like; your friend(s)/co-worker(s), wife/girlfriend, husband/boyfriend, parent/sibling(s), your church member(s) (either internal/external), party member(s) (either internal/external), school mate(s), race/tribe mate(s) is/are the one(s) sabotaging you (Adm, 2013). The best way to understand/self-assess apartheid/discrimination and sabotage is to understand how human beings behave and accept it as it is instead of fighting it; this will help us to understand why people behave the way they behave (Adm, 2013). To Be Continued.

Thanks for Reading. Good Night!

SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

Self-Assessing the Purpose of Your Life: How Do I Live A Purposeful Life?

When we are talking about living a purposeful life, we are not talking about wealth! Jesus was not from a rich family, but right from the beginning he knew what he was on earth to do. At a very early age of twelve (12), he was found in the God’s temple (Luke 2: 42-49).

One of the secretes to living a peaceful life is never to consider yourself as hopeless or wasteful! What can help you to avoid this cancerous thought is using self-assessment to assess what your purpose in life is. Jesus at the age of 12 knows that his purpose in life was to do the work of God. So, when his parents found him in the temple and were complaining, he reminded them of his purpose on earth that; don’t they know that he has to do the work of his father? (Luke 2:49). A purpose in life helps us not to only remain focus but to also avoid seeing life as a competition. What then is a purpose? Bronk et al., (2009) define purpose as an aim that acts in the interest of the “larger world, on behalf of others or in pursuit of a larger cause”. This clearly distinguished it as a more globally oriented aim.

As seen in the image, a guest gave hopelessness as the reason of feeling like committing suicide (Hsu, 2013); people who have hopes will not be ready to kill themselves and others in suicide, thinking that they will go to heaven through that. Exodus 20:13 says: “Thou shalt not kill”. Surah 5:32 of the Holy Quran also says that, “If anyone has killed one person it is as if he had killed the whole mankind” (Arbil, 2007). This means that both Holy Books are against murder! If you kill in the name of God, you need to seriously self-assess your religious life to find out where your spirit comes from. Use self-assessment and prayer to identify your purpose in life, this will give you hope and peace to live peacefully with others too.

“Life without purpose is meaningless” (Kowalski, 2018). Living life without a purpose is hopeless; and hopelessness is an obstacle to personal, family, national and internal peace. There are theoretical and empirical literatures that suggest that, “Having a purpose in life contributes to optimal human development (Bronk et al., 2009; Bronk, 2005). Living a purposeful life is very important particularly amongst the youth as it contributes to “resilient” youths (Benard, 1991). Benson, (2006) revealed that purpose creates a developmental mind set for “Positive youth development”, whilst Shek, (1993) identified that “Youth with purpose are psychologically healthier than their peers”. The findings by these researchers were found to persist till adulthood as confirmed in studies by Crumbaugh & Maholick, (1967) and Kish & Moddy, (1989).

If youths who have purpose are healthier psychologically (Shek, 1993), then once you identify the purpose of your life; you are indirectly helping to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal Three (SDGs 3) says that; “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” (UN SDGs, 2016). Healthy people are happier and economically sound as confirmed by the saying from Carlson, (2016) that, “your health is your wealth”. Goal 8 of the UN SDGs talks about “Decent work and economic growth”, this will not be possible when the youth which are the majority are not healthy because they have no purpose in life and it has let to hopelessness. Bawumia, (2017), noticed that the 2015 SDG agenda fundamentally has a transformative element that combines sustainability, inclusiveness and financing for the first time. He revealed that commitment to the SDGs in Ghana will only be possible when there is a collective effort. These sustainability, inclusiveness and financing would be mere mockery if the citizenries are not healthy and peaceful.

Here are some of the ways that we can identify our purpose in life:

Identify Your Personal values – What are your values in life? In most cases, your personal values are directly linked to your purpose in life. Salva, (2017) on his blog said that “Purpose Leads to Hope and Hope Leads to Purpose”. So, identifying your values can help you in identifying what your purpose in life is.

Know Your Interest areas in life – Doing the things that we like on earth can help us identify our purpose in life. What we like and do are in most cases in line with what our purpose in life is. Forbes, (2016) in an article entitled: “Six Ways To Discover Your Life Purpose” revealed that you can identify the purpose of your life by following the hobbies of your life. Sometimes the things that we like doing can themselves serve as our purpose in life.

Value Education, Skills or talents – Education is undeniably very important in every aspects of humans’ lives. The best form of self-assessment is education and through education, one can identify his/her purpose in life. We can identify our skills and talents using education and the skills/talents that we have are mostly linked to our purpose in life. Doing our homework can help us identify our purpose (Forbes, 2016). This home work is talking not only about homework giving to us by our teachers or lecturers in school, but it is also talking about scanning through our lives (self-assessment). This can be done in so many ways by studying our environment.

Fear of God and Use Your Conscience – Live life to please God. The fear of God is the beginning of conscience; do things that will not let your conscience be judging later. Proverbs 9:10 says that we get wisdom when we fear God and this will also give us knowledge that we look for in life. When you truly fear God, your purpose in life will naturally always be living your life to please Him. This will give you peaceful mind and also help to live peacefully with others since you would not like to hurt your neighbor which goes against the greatest commandment that: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).

Assess Your relation with others – Relationship with people like friends, family members, co-workers, co-tenants, church members, party members and so on can let you feel valueless in life and loose your main purpose. These same relationships can also let you feel valuable, accepted, and dignified; they can help you to identify your talents/skills and purpose in life.

Be Health Conscious – Sickness can make you feel hopeless, wasteful and loss your sense of purpose in life. To identify and live a purposeful life, develop health seeking behaviors and visit your health facility regularly to screen yourself for possible ailments even if you are not sick.

 These are just some examples of living a purposeful and hopeful life that can give you happiness, and peace. Do not just celebrate Christmas because others are celebrating, have a personal purpose. Christmas (the birth of Jesus) should not be seen as a celebration by only Christians, but the whole mankind. Jesus was not borne for only the Jews, but the whole mankind: Mohammed was not borne for only Muslims but the whole mankind. None of the Prophets in the Holy Books was borne for only some specific groups of people, but the whole mankind. The celebration of Jesus or Mohammed should always be seen as a period of unification but NOT division. This is one of the reasons why I am always proud to be a Ghanaian. Ghanaians do not discriminate during the celebration of any of these religious leaders – this should be the purpose for the whole world. I wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy Prosperous New Year in Advanced. Thank you for Reading!

Some References

Arbil, M. (2007). Faith and spirituality: Ten commandments from the Bible and Quran. Retrieved from https://www.islamicity.org/3096/ten-commandments-from-the-bible-and-quran/ on 23^rd December 2018 at 5:05PM.

Bawumia, M. (2017). Key Notes Address Delivered by H. E. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana On the Occasion of Ghana’s Roadmap Forum. Retrieved form https://www.modernghana.com/news/766847/key-note-address-... on 29^th March 2018 at 9:32AM.

Benard, B. (1991). Fostering resiliency in kids: Protective factors in the family, school and community. San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and development.

Benson, P., L. (2006). All kids are our kids: What communities must do to raise caring and responsible children and adolescents (2^nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Bronk, K., C. (2005). Portraits of purpose: A study examining the ways a sense of purpose contributes to positive youth development. Dissertation Abstract International. UMI 3187267.

Bronk, K., C., Lapsley, D., K., Talib, T., L., Finch, H., & Hill, P., L. (2009). Purpose, hope, and life satisfaction in three age groups. The Journal of Positive Psychology. 1-26. doi: 10.1080/17439760903271439.

SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

HOW TO SELF-ASSESS YOUR LIFE

Life is like mathematics: once you fail to calculate well, you will get a wrong answer (Unknown Author, 2012); therefore, you will fail. See self-assessment like mathematics where a calculator is used to calculate for the right answer for you to succeed in life. To be able to use some calculators (scientific calculators) you must first of all learn how to use them. Therefore, there are some skills or ways that you need to know in order to do effective self-assessment. During self-assessment, be frank with yourself, be ready to accept any mistake or outcome that you might have identified. See self-assessment as an eraser that you can use to erase/correct certain mistakes in your life. You can also see it as a measuring jar/cylinder that you can use to measure your achievements in life; this will help you appreciate what God has done for you and glorify Him. To have an effective self-assessment, you must first identify your status in life, where you want to be from there, and the area(s) that you want to assess yourself.

I have ever posted about loneliness on my Facebook's wall, group, and page (11.06.14, 01.05.18). Spending time alone is very important during self-assessment! Loneliness, though, generally is known as a bad thing; you can never have a perfect self-assessment without sitting down alone somewhere to have a reflection of your life. “With deep reflection you will see why you are going through the situation or challenges” (Joshua, 2018).  But, Ghulam et al., (2017) found out that: "Self-esteem and loneliness have significant relationship", confirming that loneliness is bad.

Fathiannisa Hadi, (2017) had a different opinion of loneliness. In her answer: "Trying to help with my experience" to a question by quora.com, "Is loneliness bad for your life?"; she said: “I feel free to express myself when I’m alone". She added: "I love loneliness". Loneliness indeed is not good but sometimes we need to spent time alone to reflect on our lives for what to do next or correct.

There are three types of loneliness when we are talking about the “normal” types of loneliness amongst the general public (Peplau & Perlman, 1981): we have a loneliness where the person has difficulty keeping social relationship with others; there is also a subjective form of loneliness that is not necessarily about the person objectively isolating him/herself, and people can be alone without feeling (being) lonely; we have an unpleasant and distressful loneliness. I am talking about the second type of loneliness where people can be alone without feeling lonely. One of the ways you can be alone without feeling lonely is to make yourself busy trying to self-assess your life.

Moustakas, (1961), in “Forms and Measurement of Loneliness in Social Psychology of Loneliness” confirmed that existential loneliness is inevitable in human’s experience and a time of self-confrontation that provides opportunity for self-growth. He added that, loneliness can lead to pain, likewise; it results in triumphant creativity. This creativity is as a result of self-assessment! We may need some people to help us during self-assessment, but it’s necessary to find a quiet place somewhere to sit down alone and assess ourselves before meeting them. Self-assessment is PEACE, as it is left with just some few days for the year to end; you should never forget to self-assess your life. Because of the importance of self-assessment, it can be done at every moment of one’s life, especially; at the beginning, middle, and end of the year.

Sit down and take a critical look at your current situation(s) in life! What are the good and bad moments in your past and present? What did you do to get those good moments: what did you do and had those bad moments? Now, think of what you should have done better and learn from your bad moments. This will help you to identify your challenges and opportunities (Moustakas, 1961) in life. “Your challenges are your school of lessons. When challenges are not well managed, they will be thrown back and reappear as life time challenges” (Joshua, 2018). In whatever area you assess yourself, identify and deal with your challenges to help build you up for opportunities (Moustakas, 1961) in your life. 2018 might have been a bad or good year, but how can you make 2019 a good or a better year? So, during self-assessment; reflect on your previous and current situations in life and how you can turn things around for a better, peaceful and happier life.

The following are some of the ways that you can self-assessed yourself.

v  Spend time alone to reflect on your Personal Life in General,

Ø  Find out your Interest Areas in Life;

ü  What do you do often during your leisure/free time (What do you do for fun)?

ü  What are your likes and dislikes?

v  Find out How Your Environment Affects Your Life.

Ø  Your Family Life,

Ø  Your Educational Life,

Ø  Your Working Environment,

Ø  Your Political Environment,

Ø  Your Religious Environment,

Ø  Your Relationship with Others, and so on.

v  Identify and Self-Assess Your Skills or Talents,

v  Identify Your Main Purpose in Life and How to Fulfill It.

They are grouped under three major headings as:

v  External Environment,

v  Internal Environment, and

v  Dreams.

A life without a purpose is a hopeless life; and hopelessness is a threat to personal, family, national and internal peace. Do not ask me why? I don’t want to say that if one values his/her life and that of others, he/she would not commit suicide bombing. Those who are convincing you to do suicide bombing, why can’t one of them volunteer since they also want to go to heaven? Only hopeless people will think that killing themselves to kill others will send them to heaven and it is better! Use self-assessment and prayer to identify your purpose in life, this will give you hope and peace.
Thank you for Reading!

References

Chris Nickson. (Last Updated, 18^th May 2016). Lessons from Osler 004: Treat patient, not the disease. Retrieved from https://lifeinthefastlane.com/lessons-from-osler-004/

Ghulam, I., Vicar, S., & Omar, K. (2017). Relationship between self-esteem and loneliness among university students living in hostels. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology. 6(2): 21-27. Doi: 10.5861/ijrsp.2017.1735.

Hadi, F. (2017). An Answer to the question: “Is loneliness bad for your life?”. Retrieved on 25.09.18 at 11:50PM from https://www.quora.com/Is-loneliness-bad-for-your-life.

Joshua, T., B. (2018). A sermon given by T. B. Joshua at the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN). Retrieved from Green TV on 14^th October 2018 at 11:28AM.

Moustakas, C., E. (1961). Loneliness. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Peplau, A., & Perlman, D. Toward a Social Psychology of Loneliness. In chapter Two of Duck, B., & Gilmour, R. (1981). Personal Relationships in Disorder. Academic Press. 32-33.

Unknown Author. (23.02.2012). “Life is like mathematics. We all want to have the right answer at the end but for that we need to know what to add, where to subtract, how to multiply and when to divide.”. Retrieved from https://boardofwisdom.com/togo/Quotes?mgsgid=491120 on 21.11.18 at 2:30AM.

SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

SAYING SORRY IS SELF-ASSESSMENT AND IT IS PEACE

Before we continue today, I am sorry for not being active for the past periods. I was sick and my mother too was sick. Immediately after recovery, I went to work on my project for final submission. From the middle of January to June 2019, if I am favored to be counted amongst the living, I may be posting twice every month; I am currently doing something that equally demands time sacrifice.

Assess yourself and say sorry to any one you might have wronged knowing or unknowingly. Sorry is just a simple single short word but it can heal so many wounds and build many relationships. Thank you!

SELF-ASSESSMENT IS PEACE

What Is the Importance of Self-Assessment?

Tracing the Importance of Self-Assessment from Philosophers

Knowing the importance of Self-Assessment using religion and politics as examples, let us now trace the importance Self-Assessment from Philosophers. In one of my posts on Facebook (14^th February, 2016), I posted: “Plato who was one of the Socratic period philosophers divided reality into two - the World of Things and the World of Ideas. He said, "The idea of anything is the beginning of knowledge and for doing things as what they are". He quoted Heraclitus (theory of change) on many occasions saying, "Things keep on changing" a statement found in Heraclitus theory of change”. The sayings of most of these philosophers many years ago are still very applicable in our modern-day democratic life. The mere fact that things keep on changing is enough reason for us as humans to also keep on assessing our lives regularly in order to keep up with our changing world. There are many ideas that we can identify if only we can spend just some few minutes to self-assess ourselves and the life that we are living.

These philosophers coined most of their wise sayings by assessing themselves and the environment around them. If the idea of anything is the beginning of knowledge and for doing what we do, then, how do we get that idea? Socrates sees philosophy (the love of wisdom) as the most valuable thing that we must all try to have; and he used himself as an example trying to acquire wisdom using questions and logical arguments, assessing himself and others (by examining), and thinking (reflecting). Asking of questions or thinking are all forms of self-assessments. Assessing (examining) his own life has helped others who were also able to self-assessed (self-examined) their lives. Socrates said: “The life which is unexamined is not worth living” thereby stressing the importance of self-assessment (Spivey & Squire, 2011; Johnson, 2011; Famakinwa, 2012).

Socrates was indirectly telling us to always assess or critically reflect on our actions and inactions. There are certain times in our lives where we were supposed to ‘act’ but we did not act, or ‘not to act’ but we acted (Follow me for some previous posts on actions on Facebook; example, 22.09.14, 2.10.16). Though the word, “unexamined” is a past tense; Socrates is not telling us to only examine our past, but the present too. If we are assessing our pasts; then his saying agrees with Aristotle that we do not have any experience (Bedu-Addo, 1983) at birth but acquire that as we grow up. Our experiences from our actions and inactions can help reshape our lives and that of others helping to promote a peaceful environment for all. It is only through self-assessment that we can identify our mistakes and correct them: without that we keep repeating the same mistake(s).

The Holy Books can give us both earthly and eternal PEACE, Titus 3:2 urges us: “To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men”. This can be likened to the Greatest Commandment, LOVE, (Matthew 22: 38-39). If you really love God, you will love your neighbor who is the exact image of God (Gen 1:26) and you will not speak evil of him/her nor do anything that will to hurt him/her. If this happened there will be peace on earth and people can also have the chance to repent before death (eternal peace). Violence gives no one a chance to repent! We can do our daily self-assessment using these Holy Books and they are full of philosophical sayings. “There are 100 Bible verses about philosophy” (openbible.info.). Example; Romans 6:23 which says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” is a divine philosophical saying. From the 27books, epistles and letters in the New Testament, 13 of them (excluding Hebrews) are written by the Apostle Paul using words, ideas and Greek philosophy used by philosophers like Plato, Socrates, Seneca and many other intellectuals at that time (biblethingsinbibleways.wordpress.com). He did that so that the people can better understand him in his teachings.

An article by Vidyarthi, 1995: “The philosophy of colours in the Holy Quran”, other publications by Ahmat et al., 2016: “The philosophy of divine engineering and its technological application in Quran” and Ahmad 2013: “The philosophy of the teachings of Islam” means that there are also philosophical sayings in the Holy Quran too. These philosophical approaches have no effects on the divinity of these Holy Books.

Please, kindly follow me on Facebook for most of my previous postings. They can help you to understand and draw a link from my previous and current posts. Thank you for Reading.

Some References

Ahmad, H., M., G. (2013). The philosophy of the teachings of Islam. Revised Edition. Islam International Publications Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84880-055-7.

Ahmat, N., Ahmad, N., A., & Omar, S., R. (2016). The Philosophy of “Divine” Engineering and Its Technological Application in Quran: Conference Paper – September 2016. ResearchGates. 1-28.

Bedu-Addo, J., T. (1983). Sense-Experience and Recollection in Plato's Meno. The Johns Hopkins University Press. The American Journal of Philosophy. 104(3): 228-248. DOI: 10.2307/294538, https://www.jstor.org/stable/294538.

Bible things in Bible ways: Paul and his use of Greek Philosophy. Retrieved on 06.11.18 at 12:45PM from https://biblethingsinbibleways.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/paul-and-his-use-of-greek-philosophy/.

Famakinwa, J., O. (2012). Is the Unexamined Life Worth Living or Not? The Royal Institute of philosophy. 11(31): 97-103.

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