Today's speaker was Segun Gbedegesin, a renowned expert in European and African ethics, who wrote a book in 1991 advancing the popular concepts of personal identity and destiny. Gbedegesin told us the story of Iwa, and how unlike Orunmila, we cannot afford to lose her, because she represents good character and self-identity. It is said that a man who loses their self, i.e. their identity or character will get nowhere in this world, and I believe that to be true. We talked a lot about the Egyptian God Ma'at, who stood for justice, truth and order. Western society took Egyptian philosophy (an interesting aspect of this is that even the Hebrews took some ideas from the concepts of the Principles of Ma'at, which acted as a moral and righteous code for the Egyptians that could've been used for the 10 commandments), and combined it with moral ethics. The Principles of Ma'at in specific were widely followed by the Egyptian people, for angering the God of truth and justice was not a good idea. Another set of texts around that time was the instructions of Ptahhotep, which focused on bettering oneself with character and leadership qualities. Written on ancient Egyptian coffins were texts with themes of punishment and reward in the afterlife. It is said that in addition to the principles of Ma'at that the coffin texts also had influence on the 10 commandments. Today's lecture's focus was Omuluabi, which is a person of character who works constantly to help themselves along with the community, constantly bettering everyone even if it takes sacrifice. The other focus was Iwa, which put simply is existence, with centers around good character and religion.
No comments:
Post a Comment