Ghskeptic

09/09/2022

Religious people at at again🤦🏼‍♂️
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62827615.amp

21/08/2022

Waa look at this

14/03/2022

Girl couldn't wait 😂😂😂

08/09/2021

03/09/2021

29/08/2021

What does that mean?

11/08/2021

Reason: if you are the son of God, save yourself and save us.

Superstition: shhh🤫🤫,can't you see that he is the son of God...?
Lord, when you get to your kingdom, please remember me.

02/07/2021

"They don't wanna know what it is, because they wanna believe what it isn't" - Aaron Ra

26/06/2021

https://youtu.be/1q8KvHy7AXo

This comes about in response to being told, hundreds and hundreds of times over the years, that my unwillingness to be convinced by insubstantial moth-eaten ...

02/06/2021

"One afternoon I saw this lady who was wearing fine clothes and her eyes had a strange colour ; like green or something. I got so scared. I think she is a mermaid or a witch walking about in the day"

Me: have you heard of contact lenses?

03/05/2021

"I am atheist because I set out to be the best Christian I could be"
Matt Dillahunty

02/05/2021

I remember those days we used to play the devil's music, like hiphop and hiplife on weekdays and play holy gospel music on Sunday mornings.
Ahhh... those were good days😊😊😊

10/04/2021

Imagine one of your parents died and family decides everyone should eat the body and drink the blood of the deceased (even metaphorically) every week or year
Creepy? No?

26/03/2021

"Beliefs inform actions, and actions have consequences"
Matt Dillahunty

19/03/2021

"You don't lose anything by losing faith, what you gain is reality" - Lawrence Krauss

03/01/2021

"No matter our path, all roads lead to the lonesome city of demise" - Steven Woodford

13/12/2020

"The future is not FATED, it is CREATED"
Frank Stephenson

30/11/2020

Use less plastics, the lives of the next generation depends on it

29/11/2020

Good afternoon brothers and sisters. We hope you are doing great and you weekends were lovely. Its been a great ride engaging on various topics on politics, society, environment and religious ideas since September.

We will like to thank you and express our sincere appreciation to all who have read, commented, liked and shared our posts over the past few months.

We hope all these articles sparked some curious questions, conversations and ideas you were able to share with your friends and family.

We are here to interrogate some previously held beliefs and help spark skepticism among our readers. We at Ghskeptic are glad you came along with us through this journey and hope its been informative and gotten you questioning prior beliefs.

Ghskeptic will be going on a break for the rest of the year and will resume in January to engage you in past news and topical issues that are engaged in the media. We will continue to share with you our thoughts and expose some of the ways we can think of certain concepts and ideas.

We have published 11 articles since September 2020. If you haven't read any of our articles or missed some of them, you can always check out the article list below and see which ones may interest you:

- The beetles are more popular that Jesus
- I have an award for you
- My ladies!!! Your holy book will not help you
- Suffocating in Plastics
- We are back
- Death by the tongue
- Let's Pray
- They will not lie to me, I trust them
- God is a politician
- Death
- Cynicism

Thank you for the love and support for our cause to inspire skepticism among the youth.

Enjoy the rest of the year.
Be safe and please VOTE!

We wish you all an early Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

And as always thank you for the kind read.
Until our next interaction
REMAIN SKEPTICAL

Please follow us on Twitter .

NB:We will still be interacting with you on Facebook and twitter throughout the holidays. However we will not be publishing articles until January.

Enjoy the rest of the year
Love,
Ghskeptic

21/11/2020

CYNICISM

For a long time, I have always contemplated why taking part in the most important part of the democratic process was worth my time – Elections. I would go get registered in my local constituency but will never show up to vote. For me it was just to get the card so I can use it when opening bank accounts or for identification when its required, until the Ghana card came into the picture. Going to stand in long queues felt like a complete waste of my time, as many who find themselves in my shoes would say - “it will not change anything”.

Why is it important to take part in elections? The politicians don’t care about us. All they care about is making money and driving in luxury cars and skipping traffic on a hot Monday morning while the rest of us scramble to find transport and sit in uncomfortable trotros (buses) in a 3-hour long traffic to get to work. Are you telling me I should waste my time to go vote for these people? People who do not seem to give a damn what we are going through with the rampant floods, unemployment, diseases, poverty, unsafe drinking water, death trapped roads and even classrooms to have basic education?

NO!!!

They are selfish sycophants who only care about themselves and their families.

I have seen this kind of cynicism creep into conversations any time I have a discussion on politics with my friends. We have lost confidence in the democratic process. We believe the elections are rigged and whoever riggs the most wins the elections, and so our single votes don’t count. I have never voted ever since I got my first voter’s ID. Mainly because I am not very enthused about the process; a feeling I believe I share with many of you for same or similar reasons as expressed above. We say "oh, they are all the same, promising heaven and delivering hell while making excuses for it".

Contemplating many of these reasons for my apathy towards elections, I have realized that we the youth are the most powerful group of people in this whole process especially because we have the numbers. A high percentage of the Ghanaian population and by extension the African population is within the youth bracket. Yet we occupy most of the cynics in our country even though we are the most educated, current, and informed, among others.

DID I SAY WE ALSO HAVE THE NUMBERS?

We are a strong force that can topple governments by voting during elections, yet we are mostly the ones that do not care. We are ones who can critically analyze and assess prevailing issues concerning policies and even corruption allegations, yet we are not willing to fight and make our voices heard. Many of us have fallen victim to populist politics and have become partisan fanatics who will support one party or another no matter what. If we are able to have at least 2 million out of the youth population being swing voters who are skeptics and can critically assess issues based on merit, we may become the most powerful force in the republic that our voices can no longer be ignored.

The current news on alleged corruption and interference of the president in the exercise of the duties of the Special Prosecutor on corruption has become a dividing issue in our country and may have deepened the cynicism among the youth. But what I hope to pass to you in this piece is that, we must endeavor to continue loving our country no matter what and fight for its liberation from those who would want to capitalize on the powers it bestows to lord over, steal, kill and deceive their brothers and sisters.

The actions we take today may not yield the immediate effects tomorrow but will cause a change in the way our next generation sees and interact with the state, so they can have a better life than what we have today.

Let’s not be discouraged, because that’s what they will want – that the ones who can cause actual change are discouraged to speak up and challenge the status quo but will want to be in bed with ones to whom they can appeal to their emotional sensibilities with propaganda and populist policies.

I AM VOTING ON THE 7TH OF DECEMBER AND SO SHOULD YOU

THANK YOU FOR THE KIND READ🙏🙏🙏

UNTIL OUR NEXT INTERACTION

REMAIN SKEPTICAL
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14/11/2020

"The only truly meaningless life is one that fails to recognise the urgency and limitations of our days because they expect some greater things to come in the afterlife"
Alex J O'Connor

14/11/2020

DEATH

It is an inevitable destination of life on the planet. Everything that has life dies. Seems like a cliché but one cannot overemphasize its significance to our existence as humans. We contemplate death, we see it happen to our friends and family, even to our foes and people we do not particularly care about. For each of these people, it stirs up different feelings of anxiety, pain, depression, and to others happiness because they couldn’t wait for their nemesis to die. Why do humans live just so they can die? Why bother living a good, happy, and fulfilled life just so we can die in the end? In as much as death is really depressing, it is the fuel that energizes us to find purpose.

IT IS THE KNOWLEDGE THAT AM GOING TO DIE, THAT CREATES THE FOCUS I BRING TO BEING ALIVE – NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON.

For many different people, they find their purpose in a variety of things. Some say their purpose here is to serve God(s), others to serve humanity, some to make money and live luxurious lives, among others. In each of these cases we realize that we are the ones who make these conscious decisions to create our own purpose but hasn’t been imposed on us by some authority. Even though certain authorities could restrict, direct, and guide our purpose depending on what authority one subscribes to, the onus lies on every individual to determine his or her own purpose. The absence of an ability to determine ones’ own purpose is to be categorized as a slave or a serf.

Within this week, there has been a lot of mixed feelings expressed over the death of the former president Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings. Many feel sad about his death while others are happy because their arch enemy and one who brought death and misery to their family has finally fallen. We at Ghskeptic have had no experience by way of interaction whatsoever with the former president and his activities in the past and so will not make any value judgments in this regard. However, we know and appreciate his instrumental involvement in ushering us into the fourth republic under the 1992 constitution of Ghana and honorably leaving the presidency when his time was up – something uncommon among many African leaders.

Death always reminds us of our own mortality and helps us to sometimes reassess our decisions, opinions and our lives in general on what is more important. Some make up consoling stories and statements to help bereaved families get over their lost ones. For instance, “they are in a better place”, “we will meet them again”, “it is God who gives and the one who takes”, “God knows what he is doing”, “Good people don’t live long” among a host of others.

It almost always gets people asking, what then are we even doing here on this planet? What is our purpose here? Is there an afterlife? etc. 5.2 million kids die every year under the age of 5 years as of 2019, hundreds of thousands of people have died and are dying in Yemen, Congo, Somalia, Cameroon, Syria, Pakistan and a host of other countries around the world from civil wars, hunger, natural disasters among others. So far 1.3 million have died from Covid-19 worldwide. What is the purpose of all that?

It seems life on the planet is full of misery and death which sometimes depends on where you are born – a choice we do not get to make. We cannot escape death; death is everyone’s destination. There is no overarching purpose to life except for the ones we make for ourselves. Nature doesn’t know we are here, neither do the billion stars and trillions of planets that orbit them. Neither do the asteroids that may crush on the earth and kill all life on the planet just as it did to the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

We live at the mercy of nature and death is our reward - Ghskeptic

Statements like these may present as callous and non-consoling to many people, but this is the reality. Reality is not pleasant and the earlier we accept and understand that we have no one but ourselves to make life less dreadful and miserable, the better we can work together in this regard in trying to eliminate all forms of ideas that denominates and keeps us from collaboration i.e Religion, nationality, tribe, sexual orientation, political affiliation among others.

We strongly hope that the death of our former president brings us more together than it would separating us.

THANK YOU FOR THE KIND READ

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REMAIN SKEPTICAL

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07/11/2020

GOD IS A POLITICIAN

Many have asked if political neutrality exists, if it’s a myth or if it's achievable. Journalists, political analysts, members of the judiciary, security services, religious leaders, and many others are required or for lack of a better word, expected to remain neutral on all matters of political nature.

In as much as I do not agree with this notion, it is reliable in minimizing bias of partisan political nature even with its strict rules. Others have no laid down restrictions on which activities they may or may not engage in, especially if it's of a political nature (referring to religious leaders here).

I do not think that most people have an issue with religious leaders taking part in politics, especially because they also have the right and freedom to associate themselves with one party or another. But they possess the numbers and the ability to influence their members in one direction or another, as many of these leaders are fetishized and idolized by their followers. Many followers have been engulfed in the fanatism of religion, that any statement made by their leader is the word of one god or another and must not be questioned (Please refer to our previous article on this topic: THEY WILL NOT LIE TO ME, I TRUST THEM).

The problem arises when those who claim to be neutral express their political affiliations and preferences shrouded in cloaks of prophecies or predictions and prayers. Many others are more overt with their approach as to which political party they affiliate with or support like Paula White, the American televangelist and chair of the evangelical advisory board in Donald Trump’s administration. In one of her trending videos, she is seen praying strongly for God to intervene in making Trump remain the president of America.

The question that emanates from this is, “is god a democrat or a republican?”

We have often observed that popular pastors, bishops, reverends, traditional priests, etc make prophecies as to who will win the Ghanaian elections. Many times over, these prophesies fail and as a result, many have become quite numb to their deceptions. This is mostly predicated on the assumption that some supernatural power is somehow interested in the Ghanaian elections or any other elections for that matter. Instead of assessing the various political views and policies, their feasibility, and achievability within a limited time period, we go about praying for some supernatural power to intervene in our political affairs as to which political party wins an election. If any form of intervention was possible, what then happens to the losers who also happened to pray to the same god for a similar outcome in their favor.

Does a god intervene in any sort of competitive event like football, baseball, swimming, formula 1 racing, elections, or which one of the boys gets to date the beautiful girl down the block? I’m sure you can answer these questions for yourself and perhaps come to the conclusion that we are on our own. Everything that we have achieved and will achieve will all depend on our skills and ability to reason out how to solve our problems. Wishful thinking never solves any problems or win competitions let alone elections.

These prophecies by religious leaders are all mostly plots for political recognition. Some even go to the extent of saying that if the candidate of a political party doesn’t come to see them for prayers or whatsoever, they will lose the elections, overstating their own importance while perpetuating deception and ignorance.

IF PRAYERS AND PROPHESIES WORKED, WE WOULDN’T BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE

UNTIL OUR NEXT INTERACTION

REMAIN SKEPTICAL

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31/10/2020

“THEY WILL NOT LIE TO ME, I TRUST THEM”

TRUST, a firm belief in someone, in the reliability of an action and in someone’s skills and utterances, form an important part of our social interactions. It is a mutual phenomenon that holds communities, marriages, friendships and other relationships together. We could even say that citizens trust the state to make sure they are safe, and their interests are paramount in all dealings.

However, the exercise of trust of course is not the same in every situation. Some happen more naturally than others, like a child not having to doubt that his or her parents will not murder them for one reason or another. It never crosses our minds to think this way. As morbid as this example sounds, it shows to what extent we cherish TRUST in society even with our lives.

The transmission of information and the conduct in workplaces do not entirely yield to these mutual assumptions that people will not “screwing you over”. Trust may cause you to lose your job if you do not verify and recheck to make sure you are not in contravention of any company policy regarding the handling of say, documents, receipts, finances etc.

For some reason, we tend to trust authority and assume they are working in our interest without due diligence of verification. Especially in terms of information given by authority and those we love. We trust that the said person wouldn’t lie, mislead, or “screw us up”. For this reason, among many others we just believe whatever they say without question. Perhaps the reason is due to how our society thinks asking questions, especially the elderly, is a sign of disrespect. But it’s about time we move passed these social norms.

“UNTHINKING RESPECT FOR AUTHORITY IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF TRUTH” – Albert Einstein

Due to this, we believe all sorts of things like: Vitamin C prevents one from a Flu, Africans did not know what gold and diamonds were until the colonial masters came, a God(s) created human beings, wearing face masks causes health problems, evolution is not true, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, Mohammed went to heaven on a flying horse, the earth is flat, earth emanated from the back of a giant tortoise, there is an afterlife and a whole lot of things we were told when we were kids.

The generally accepted method of knowing truth is using logic and the scientific METHOD. Science is reliable, it is falsifiable, it can be demonstrated, replicated and tested. Through this method humanity has been able to discover a host of things about our environments and how it came to be. There are no authorities in science. No single person is beyond “reproach”. Everyone’s ideas and work can be tested and falsified.

With that said, it is important to always investigate the assertions made by authority and people closest to us, as some of these relationships cloud our judgment, but rather follow the evidence. Many of us are too lazy to find out for ourselves and instead rely on people’s personal experiences. Especially within the religious community, every religion and denomination believe they have some revealed truth others do not have. Most of these are because of some person’s personal experience in a dream or a vision and claim to have received some special knowledge from some God(s).

People trust their pastors or spiritual leaders to tell them the truth without verification. Personal experience is not a reliable path to truth, because everyone has a different one. Some also trust the inerrancy of some holy book, that everything in the book is truth and representative of reality. Whenever they hear any new information that conflicts with their previously held beliefs, they reject it as false and deny themselves of learning something new.

“If a billion people agree with you, the ones you should listen to are those who disagree, because then you might learn something new” – Ghskeptic

Question authority, embrace new information, do not trust blindly but be a skeptic, and always follow the evidence no matter where it leads, because that is the only path to truth about anything we hold dear. Do not be one who rejects evidence in favor of belief, faith or trust. Doing something out of belief just because you have been told to, in the face of evidence to the contrary is cognitive dissonance.

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24/10/2020

LET’S PRAY

Prayer is an invocation that seeks to activate a communication with a deity, which could be the Christian God, Allah, Vishnu, Brahma, Zeus, Antoa or the tens of thousands of Gods or deities that exists in many cultures around the world. Each one of these have some specific and well-defined procedures on how this activity is supposed to be carried out. Followers of the deities in these many religions strongly believe the supernatural potency of this ritual, practiced seeking help on numerous issues ranging from fixing their cars, blessing food to raising the dead. Some perform this ritual in almost every step they take in their life, asking for protection, solutions to problems and to give gratitude for some profound event that happened in their lives they might have not hoped for and cannot explain.

Some of the most popular religions in Africa include Islam and Christianity. Followers of the former are directed to pray about five times a day while the latter is encouraged to pray ceaselessly. Some followers claim these prayers work and can give testimonies of how their prayer helped them get jobs, recovered from life threatening ailments, admission into the schools of their choice among others.

The question I always ask is;

Did you have no physical intervention/input in the realization of the solution for which you prayed for?

People sometimes fail to understand that without their own efforts, no supernatural event is ever going to happen to solve problems. For instance, if one doesn’t apply for a scholarship, one cannot expect to get said scholarship. Followers believe that being prayerful brings good fortune. When these good fortunes do not materialize, they console themselves with “maybe it was not God’s plan” or “God does what he/she/it wants” among others. Some may blame it on the lack of faith, praying the wrong way or God having some bigger picture.

Again, the question that rises is; if God indeed does what he/she/it wants, knows the future and what you will ask before you even ask for it and has a plan for everyone, then why waste time praying in the first place. I know many religious people would have many comebacks for these questions and even say, “well if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for other people”. Which sane person would take his brother/sister who has suffered as accident to the church or mosque instead of the hospital?

When adherents know the cause of calamities that befall them, they blame the person who caused it. If they aren’t sure they blame it on the devil, or some demonic attack on their person.

Just this week, a storey building with church members who had been praying three day for their pastor who was ill collapsed and has killed and injured about 20 people so far according to Graphic online. There isn’t an exact number put forward as to how many members were in this premise praying.

According to the National Disaster Management organization (NADMO), the building was constructed in 1997 with cheap materials and unprofessional labour which primarily included members of the church. This tragic event – for which we at Ghskeptic give our heartfelt condolences to the families of the injured and deceased can be identified to have been caused by human error. They obvious questions are;

Why didn’t god save his people as perhaps some of the members praying in the premise didn’t know about the cheap materials and unprofessional labour?

Did god want his people to die?

Why did they have to pray for three days for healing of the seemingly strongest proponent of prayer?

Why was the pastor sick in the first place why hasn’t God healed the him even till this day?

There have been numerous examples of these that we’ve seen over the years regarding calamities that befall humans. Instead of taking the right steps to reduce their occurrence, we spend hours performing as activity which obviously does not yield any verifiable results.
We waste time in prayer camps, consultations with pastors, and conventions thinking something supernatural is going to happen to make our short lives on this planet better. We assume mediocrity instead of hard work.

If you believe in prayer, which one of these is more plausible;

That out of the more than 7 billion human beings on the planet, all the laws of the universe were suspended just to fix your trivial problem OR you are just in a delusion.

IF PRYAERS WORKED, WE WOULDN’T BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE - Ghskeptic

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20/10/2020

We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Nigeria.