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    As I Know, Shall I Believe
    As I Know, Shall I Believe
    As I Know, Shall I Believe
    Ebook81 pages1 hour

    As I Know, Shall I Believe

    By Majambu Mbikay

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    About this ebook

    This book is a collection of short essays that I wrote between 2000 and 2004 for a quarterly catholic magazine of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It contains opinions and thoughts that I was given the chance to share with my community of origin and faith — and with many others, as I understand — on various topics of interest to the African, the Congolese, the Canadian, the scientist and the believer that I am. As one, these different facets of mine held the pen that crafted these words. These words are a partial and passing reflection of my multiple quests for understanding, from the Congo of my birth and youth, to my adoptive Canada where I now live. They contain no eternal truth. There are mere expressions of my lifelong inclination to ignore appearances, and to search, through the noisy claims of certainty, the vast unknown still to be explored.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLulu.com
    Release dateSep 7, 2015
    ISBN9781329529892
    As I Know, Shall I Believe

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      Book preview

      As I Know, Shall I Believe - Majambu Mbikay

      As I Know, Shall I Believe

      AS I KNOW,

      SO SHALL I BELIEVE

      Majambu Mbikay, Ph.D.

      An African Scientist’s Musing

      on Beliefs, Science, and Society

      12 Short Essays

      Copyright © 2015 Majambu Mbikay

      All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced nor used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

      First Printing: 2012

      IBSN: 978-1-329-52989-2

      Les Initiatives Akulà !

      L’île-Perrot, Québec, Canada

      [email protected]

      portrait

      The author

      Majambu Mbikay, B.Pharm., M.A., Ph.D., is a molecular biologist, a Biomedical Researcher at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and a Professor of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Ottawa. His research includes, among others, the relationship between genes and the environment in resistance and susceptibility to chronic diseases.

      Professor Mbikay is a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

      In loving memory of

      My Father,

      for constantly probing the depth of my beliefs;

      and

      My Mother,

      for knowing that Love is the only belief that really matters.

      Preface

      This book is a collection of short essays that I wrote between 2000 and 2004 for Lisanga, a quarterly magazine published by the Congolese Catholic Community of Montreal, in Quebec, Canada. It contains opinions and thoughts that I was given the chance to share with my community of origin and faith (and with many others, as I understand) on various topics of interest to the African, the Congolese, the Canadian, the scientist and the believer that I am. As one, these different facets of mine held the pen that crafted these words. These words are a partial and passing reflection of my multiple quests for understanding, from the Congo of my birth and youth, to my adoptive Canada where I now live. They contain no eternal truth. There are mere expressions of my lifelong inclination to ignore appearances, and to search, through the noisy claims of certainty, the vast unknown still to be explored.

      Reading these series of assays, the reader will undoubtedly notice that I rarely refer to assertions by others. A constant need for validation by some famous names is, in my opinion, the mark of a dithering character. Like anyone, I am the fruit of countless influences and miscellaneous cares. The fate of a fruit, and the best tribute it possibly could pay to the tree that bore it and the soil that nourished it, is to sprout and grow into a tree that will bear fruits of its own. It is therefore without remorse that I claim as my own the teachings of all those who have walked with me along my path. Herein I translate these teachings in words akin to my own sensibilities. This little collection of essays is a seedling, a fragile seedling indeed, a molded but still pliant blend of what I know and what I believe.

      Postface

      I would; it would; I might; it might…

      The conditional is my favorite verbal mode of speech. For it makes room for debate, for quest, and for awe. The conditional is an interface between doubt and belief. It is a salutary tension between our transient reality and the permanent eternity of our deepest longing.

      For, what I believe, I do not know it; I feel it. I will probably never fully know it through the cold analysis of my intellect; but I shall believe in it nonetheless. For I feel it so often and in so many ways. I feel it in the sober symmetry of a mathematical formula, in the chemical harmony of DNA strands, and in the cycling metamorphoses of seasons. I feel it in the smile of a child, the charm of a woman, the arrogance of a youth. I feel it in mayhems of violence, in wars of survival. I feel it in the memories of failing bodies. I feel it even in the silence of death.

      Life, as I feel it, is a grandiose metaphor that I shall know in belief!

      I

      Science and the Sacred

      Ba-Mbamba bambile

      Bintu byonso mbya Mvidye

      Mvidye wa kuulu wafuka!

      Heralds of all ages have proclaimed it:

      All that exists belongs to God;

      The heavenly God created it all!

      (A Tshiluba [1] saying).

      The human genome has now been elucidated. The sequence of the three billion of the quarto of bits (nucleotides) that make up the chemistry of heredity (DNA) is now known. In time, a long time surely, the genetic program that defines the limits of the biologically possible to Man will be deciphered. With this deciphering, Man will know the role of every functional segment of DNA (gene), in health, disease, disease risk, and even longevity. The chemistry of life having lost its mystery, Man will be able to alter it at whim.

      In fact, this remolding of life began more than 40 years ago with the emergence of DNA recombination techniques. These techniques allow one to snip DNA at precise positions, splice disparate fragments of it, remove, and insert genes in living organisms, with surgical precision. Transgene, cloning, genetic therapy, genotyping etc.: this jargon no longer belongs to exclusive arcane of molecular biologists; it is now part of the public discourse. We all have heard of the cloning of Dolly and other animals. We all have followed the debate on genetically modified organisms. Life, in its material aspects, can now be altered like any matter.

      The Eighth Day of Creation is the title of a book by H. F. Judson [2] that documents, in captivating

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