Dear New Writers, Why Aren’t You Earning Money From Your Writing?
Why Nobody Should Be an Atheist
Is Favoritism Ethically Justified for Some Groups?
It is not a thing of surprise for one to think that a concept as big as religion will naturally evaporate from the earth’s surface to die a natural death.
China has the highest number of atheists in the world because of the earlier clamp down and persecution of religious practices during the communist party rule. And organized religion, especially Christianity, is experiencing a sharp decline in the West because of the rise in secularization. However, the story is a bit different in other parts of the world and overall.
Religion has become a way of life. Religion has swiftly…
In an earlier article, “Why nobody should be an atheist”, I argued that atheism, just like religion, is faith-based. And if we stick to logic over blind faith, there are no reasons why anyone should be an atheist.
There were some seemingly profound arguments against my definition of terms and the logic of some propositions. Here, I will discuss the definitions of atheism, theism, and agnosticism, and the illogic of atheism.
The Standard Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) defines atheism in terms of theism. According to SEP, theism is the proposition that God exists. …
Reflecting on luck and merit
As I sat before my laptop, still staring at the screen and thinking of my first sentence, a thought hit me. It was like a tip of the tongue phenomenon — it has been there all the while but still not on my full consciousness.
“You are just hoping to get lucky once again”
And it felt true. Perhaps that’s not a bad thing to do as I write each day. While I adore hard work very much and like to hustle hard, I am that person who sees success as more of luck than…
It’s a good thing I’m not a judge in a court of law. However, as we all do, I judge actions and characters within my mind. The simple litmus test I carry out on any behavior, no matter how insensitive and socially unacceptable it might seem, is to answer the question, “would I do the same thing, considering all available information?” For some, questions like this show our natural empathy and our subjective biases on morality and ethics.
There are debates on the subjectivity of ethics. On one end are ethical subjectivists who believe that there is no universal truth…
After I graduated from the university, I searched for a job — Submitting CVs, cover letters, and optimizing my LinkedIn profile daily. That was probably the most challenging time of my life. My saving grace was that I was still living with my parents. I had the basic things I needed. I could ask my parents for some money, and I’d get it. After many interviews with no callbacks, I started to doubt myself. My confidence plummeted, and I was sliding down the road to depression.
I hated myself. I didn’t see it as self-hate, but the emotion that overtook…
Yes, it is a black book, it has a black cover, it has the word “black” in its name, and it was about a black boy and his struggle in the racialized America of the early 19th century. That is pretty much all I can remember about the first book I read. Because it was a trophy book for me, my primary goal was to complete the book. I didn’t care so much about whether I understood much of what I was reading. …
Isn't showing up just being present? Yes, it is. Showing up is simply being present. And yet, as simple as that sounds, it is one of the hardest things to do. And it is especially so if you are a beginner in an art or craft. It goes hand in hand with the feeling of imposter syndrome that shrinks creators into a shell. In the arts, where there is no hard rule by which to judge a work or judge how prepared one is, it becomes hard to be at home in your own skin and face the world.
The…
About six months ago, my elder brother, who now lives overseas, called me. We greeted in our usual way, then he said to me, “You just dey, like say you no de,” in our Nigerian vernacular, which translates loosely to “We are not connected like we used to be,” or “You don’t even reach out to me anymore.”
I giggled, feeling defeated, because I know I have been the over-busy one who hardly tries to reach out to people all in the name of “I have too much work on my table.”
Before this, because of the difference in our…
Being jobless sometimes feels like living with a disease, many diseases — a broken heart, a depressed pocket, and a wandering mind prone to suicidal thoughts. As a young Nigerian from a poor background being jobless can lead you over the edge, it can lead you into the dark arms of depression and into a noose, your mind had tied beforehand. Most times being jobless is not your fault. It takes walking into a pigsty, where the employer is in heat, to know that.
I have walked the scorching Lagos sun and exchanged words with the security men at the…