₦airaland Forum

macjireh:
...but ur fellow Muslim AOO1 is not in support

I'm not a Muslim.

Amoto94:
The issue is not as you have painted it the issue is about establishing the prayer correctly I for one would not allow someone who doesn't understand how to pray correctly lead me in prayers because it will be waste of time, if I don't know the condition of a person I will give the person benefit of doubt and pray behind the person but after getting to know that this person doesn't know how to pray correctly I will not pray behind the person again. The Prophet said in a narration that if an Abyssinian slave is appointed as a leader we should pray behind that person and obey him in that which is good and disobey him in that which is bad whenever he commands, so the issue of Imamship is knowledge based not as you think. I have led congregation consisting of different ethnicities and I'm not Hausa and I don't understand Hausa

I understand everything you said, and it still proves my point, which is, most Muslims in South-West practice a watered-down version of Islam, unlike their counterparts in the North.

The major reason for this disparity is that Usman dan Fodio reformed Islam in the North in the 19th century and established Sharia in the region.

However, there's been no such reformer (jihadist) in the South-West, since the religion made its way into Yoruba states from Mali around 17th or 18th century via trading and slave-trading.

(Yorubas call Islam "esin imale" because of this Malian connection.)

Thus, you find many Muslims in the region mixing Islamic practices with traditional ones.

Before the time of Usman dan Fodio, northerners also used to mix their traditional religious practices with Islamic ones, until he purified the religion in the region.

The way and manner in which a Muslim practices Islam is mainly based on their level of knowledge; I never said it has to do with ethnicity.

BlueAngel444:
ya right it's like asking how many steam engine trains are in the world. Alchemy evolved into chemistry.

The highlighted still proves my point.

That's partly correct. Chemistry, like Physics, really has its roots in natural philosophy.

BlueAngel444:
and you did he census of the "few"

It's common knowledge. Or what's the percentage of alchemists in a typical European country, compared with other professions?

Is it up to 2% of their population?

Can you list 20 popular alchemists in Europe offhand without using Google?

Amoto94:
You will just sit in your village and be capping, even in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Yorubas are teaching people Islam and studying as well. I have an acquaintance who is presently in KSA and he's Yoruba from Ondo State, there are Imams who are Yorubas leading people in Sokoto, the "Seat of the Caliphate".

Yes, there are imams leading people in Sokoto. Those Yorubas have spent many years in the North and have become more or less Hausa or Fulani.

They're not your regular Yoruba people that know little about Hausa or Fulani traditions.

If you interact with such people in the North, you won't even know they're Yoruba.

In South West, most conservative Fulani or Hausa Muslims won't pray behind a typical Yoruba Muslim due to the aforementioned reasons.

OJURONGBE1:
I don't know where those mofos saw all those nonsense they are forcing on people.
I am a Christian but i had little muslim background. My Maternal familyare muslim, very tolerant & free willed people. Infact, my grandpa was an Alhaji, he visited Mecca (3x) in his lifetime. He had many Christian friends when he was alive. He seeked the good of his fellow men. He was such a peace loving & a humanist. Every ileya was a fun filled period in my hometown at ijebu.
Sometimes i wonder how he ensured his children & relatives are hospitable & accommodating whenever i read the sad tales of these extremists.

I understand. Your grandpa, and most Muslims I'm familiar with in South West Nigeria, are moderates — not hardliners or extremists.

If you know Sharia deeply, you'd realize such Muslims only practice a "diluted", watered-down version of Islam, which Muhammad hated and condemned.

That's why northern Muslims call an average Muslim in the South-West "infidel". According to them, Yoruba Muslims are weak believers.

That's why if you come across practicing Fulani Muslims in Lagos, they won't allow you to lead their sallah (prayer) since they regard you as an infidel or munafiq (hypocrite).

People that practice Islam and do 25% –30% of what Muhammad did and commanded in his lifetime are Wahabbists (Saudis), Talibans, Salafs, Ahlu Sunnah, who are generally referred to as terrorists.

If you see someone practicing real Islam, following Qur'an and Sunnah to the letter (which isn't even possible in today's world), you'll shudder.

Each time I see Yorubas chanting Muhammad's praise several times daily, I just laugh at their ignorance of history.

BlueAngel444:
A001 and Havertz10 I almost forgot, seeing as y'all are so smart. How about banning names and words like angel, angela, demons, dragons as well


Ya I wonder how Norway, Ireland, Denmark would like for the canceling of all Odin, and Norse

Wait we should also change the days of the week, we can't have superstition names for our kids



Arggggg, damn it, even the names of the planets, what about periodic table names. Wait the names of some countries too. Arhhhhhgggggg. But I am sure you guys can figure it out, can't you

It's common practice in astronomy to name celestial objects after a god or goddess.

It's nothing extraordinary.

The sole reason for this is that astronomy is partly science and partly arts. You can't rule out the influence of legends and myths of these gods and goddesses in a field like astronomy or astrophysics — which combines astronomy with physics.

(I find the legend of Gaia particularly fascinating.)

Such legends and myths give scientists a picture of "what's possible".

For that reason, it won't be surprising to find OtemAtum's book getting more popular in circles of aspiring astronomers and astrophysicists in Nigeria and Africa.

Generally, gods and goddesses, including your dear Jesus, are mythical characters in science, until sufficient evidence is presented or discovered that proves otherwise.

BlueAngel444:
lol, make up they close down Bollywood and Hollywood while they are at it. I mean we can't be having superstitious stuffs anymore, magic, vampires, crosses, spells, aliens, ghosts, fairy tales, supernatural.

And libraries containing such must be burnt down

No more Chinese movies, K-drama, cultivation, manga, chi, shi, chakara, ki.
Close down Disney, Marvel and DC as well, doctor Faith, superman, etc

Even in this day and age, there are people, albeit just a few, who still believe in alchemy.

In the dark ages of Europe, beliefs in alchemy, black magic, and witchcraft held sway.

Today, philosophy and science have driven those beliefs to the abyss, and only a few people in Europe still entertain such beliefs.

Even so, there are movies and books in that genre in modern times in Europe for interested people.

In the future, the same analogy will apply to those genres you mentioned above in Hollywood and Bollywood.

Havertz10:
The only solution I see here is to openly discuss ending religion as a whole globally but Christians wouldn't have it, they rather accommodate another stupid form of their madness and label the people evil than accept that the whole thing is a mess that is slowing down human advancement, how many lives have been lost in the name of an imaginary being that doesn't exist

Yes, that's the solution — engaging religionists in discussions, especially using the socratic method.

Developing countries desperately need enlightenment, and that can only be achieved when we've more of rationalists, philosophers and scientists than dogmagists and religionists.

As regards ending religion, I would really love such a world where people have no religion, where dogmatism and superstition have been reduced to the barest minimum.

However, I don't think it's possible to end religion generally. Sometime in the future, Christianity and Islam will die a natural death as science continues to grow and humans get smarter.

I think a more realistic approach is to envision an end to toxic religions like Christianity and Islam.

Those two will experience the same thing that happened to African traditional religions years ago where many Africans left the indigenous religions in droves.

IMO, our descendants won't see religion the way we do. And many of them could have a personal (private) religion, perhaps based on discovery of their talent, instead of organized religion, which is mainly based on worshipping a god.

donjazet:
My brother you are very lucky to have escaped this barbaric system and ideology. You are one of the lucky few to have left that religion with your head still attached.

Yes o, thanks to Seun's Nairaland and other atheists.

donjazet:
On a side note, how the fuck_ do people feel comfortable dressing like masquerades in very hot climates??

It's mind-boggling what people would do to please a god.

donjazet:
CNN reporters before and after Taliban.

Lols. Religion of "peace" indeed. "Peace" definitely has a different meaning in the Islamic world.

"Peace" in Islam means a state of fear, intimidation, and suppression mainly achieved through the use of force, coercion, and intimidation.

It's antithetical to everything real peace represents.

donjazet:
Wow! This is quite an eye opener but they should have been links to verify and buttress these points.

Amoto94, how far this una religion sef?? I learnt the Taliban has just reinforced full sharia in Afghanistan.

The reign of terror has just begun in Afghanistan after 2 decades of Western efforts to establish democracy in the Middle Eastern country.

Girls and women will be the worst victims of this Taliban's draconian, Sharia-driven regime as their basic human rights will be brazenly denied.

Interestingly, as harsh as any government using full Sharia looks in modern times, the Taliban cannot even practice Sharia like Muhammad and his companions did hundreds of years ago.

In other words, what the Taliban will do to girls and women in the country will be child's play compared to what the so-called "noble" prophet of Islam and his companions did in their lifetime.

Religious extremism is worse than cancer, is nothing short of a catastrophe.

https://www.nairaland.com/6704157/men-kabul-mock-women-after#104842346

OtemAtum:
Hi. Are you an Igala person?

Apart from Seriot, how many languages do you understand?

OtemAtum:
In none of the spectrum already detected by science.

I thought as much. Realizing that the visible light, which we can see with the naked eye, occupies less than 0.001% of the whole EM spectrum, it's only natural to think there are other waves, EM-like, yet to be detected by scientists.

Apart from that, I think some other parts of the EM spectrum will also be discovered in the (near) future.

OtemAtum:
I'll find out what name the higher beings called this particular one soon.

Please, do. I'd so much appreciate it.

Then, when will you be sending us — your fans — the latest edition of your book, please?

OtemAtum:
For a layman to understand, the word 'spirit' is used. For science oriented people, it is a 'vacuum' within the multiverse, which cannot be seen within the visible light rays.

In which specific part of the EM spectrum or a similar wave class does the vacuum lie?

Lols

Ayaaz:
it's actually a defeat, if you consider that the ruling group America took out i.e Taliban, inturn took out the government America installed and bolstered for 20years with material, logistical and monetary support in less than a month

Taliban completely dismantled the U.S project in Afghanistan while the U.S was still in the country and just before the anniversary of 9/11, which was the whole reason for America's invasion

The trillions of dollars and accompanying efforts invested by the U.S in Afghanistan was intended to secure the country for its interests...the current situation means that the U.S must forfeit its agenda because it has no choice than to do so, they're not leaving because 'they no longer have anything to gain in the desert'

Afghanistan is a very strategically placed country and whoever can control its territory has a significant advantage in the region and that's its allure to world powers, that's why it's on the radar of powerful competing parties

It's not just a defeat, it's a humiliating defeat...the images of America scrambling to evacuate its personnel hurriedly, underscores that point.

p.s

do you know how many new members the Taliban will gain now? their popularity and appeal will definitely rise now that they're in power and are seen by Afghans to have humbled the west.

Congrats to you and your fellow jihadists (terrorists) then.

With a religion like Islam having millions of followers (slaves) around the world, achieving world peace continues to be a mirage.

Fortunately, freethinkers — agnostics, atheists, humanists — are increasing daily as humanity becomes smarter and realizes the folly in worshipping a blood-thirsty, violent, vindictive moongod like Allah from Arabia.

WarAgainstBegga:
You are a......

You deserve a thousand-year ban for mutilating Seun's picture in that manner

musicwriter:
I haven't checked kemeticphilosophy for a while cause I changed my phone. Western secret service and their dumb African slave agents are all over my phone and laptop wanting to know what I am telling Africans about slavery, colonialism and how to free ourselves from white control. I'll check later.

All right, bro. Much respect.

musicwriter:
World war 3 is coming but it could be up to 30-40 years before we see it. If Africa don't wake up before 2050, we'll be rented out as soldiers to fight wars that don't concern us. And this is why Britain, Canada, US, and the rest of Europe are already busy recruiting Africans in various field of study abroad as future conduits to achieve that purpose. They did the same thing in world war 2.
But we're so blind to see

Hmm. Quite insightful.

musicwriter:
Nothing new.

Since around 940 AD, the West has been at war against the same people in several crusade wars to no avail. At some point they made a deal to allow them practice their religion (now called Islam) as long as they won't spread it into Europe. That's how Islam was born.

Europe and Africa must brace up because war is coming there. This is the more reason Nigeria must split and let the Christians and Muslims live in two different countries.

World War 3?

What God, Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Have in Common

In my 20s, I had a friend who was brilliant, charming, Ivy-educated and rich, heir to a family fortune. I’ll call him Gallagher. He could do anything he wanted.

He experimented, dabbling in neuroscience, law, philosophy and other fields. But he was so critical, so picky, that he never settled on a career. Nothing was good enough for him.

He never found love for the same reason. He also disparaged his friends’ choices, so much so that he alienated us. He ended up bitter and alone. At least that’s my guess. I haven’t spoken to Gallagher in decades.

There is such a thing as being too picky, especially when it comes to things like work, love and nourishment (even the pickiest eater has to eat something).

That’s the lesson I gleaned from Gallagher. But when it comes to answers to big mysteries, most of us aren’t picky enough.

We settle on answers for bad reasons, for example, because our parents, priests or professors believe it.

We think we need to believe something, but actually we don’t. We can, and should, decide that no answers are good enough. We should be agnostics.

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Some people confuse agnosticism (not knowing) with apathy (not caring). Take Francis Collins, a geneticist who directs the National Institutes of Health.

He is a devout Christian, who believes that Jesus performed miracles, died for our sins and rose from the dead. In his 2006 bestseller The Language of God, Collins calls agnosticism a “cop-out.” When I interviewed him, I told him I am an agnostic and objected to “cop-out.”

Collins apologized. “That was a put-down that should not apply to earnest agnostics who have considered the evidence and still don’t find an answer,” he said. “I was reacting to the agnosticism I see in the scientific community, which has not been arrived at by a careful examination of the evidence.”

I have examined the evidence for Christianity, and I find it unconvincing. I’m not convinced by any scientific creation stories, either, such as those that depict our cosmos as a bubble in an oceanic “multiverse.”

People I admire fault me for being too skeptical. One is the late religious philosopher Huston Smith, who called me “convictionally impaired.”

Another is megapundit Robert Wright, an old friend, with whom I’ve often argued about evolutionary psychology and Buddhism. Wright once asked me in exasperation, “Don’t you believe anything?” Actually, I believe lots of things, for example, that war is bad and should be abolished.

But when it comes to theories about ultimate reality, I’m with Voltaire. “Doubt is not a pleasant condition,” Voltaire said, “but certainty is an absurd one.”

Doubt protects us from dogmatism, which can easily morph into fanaticism and what William James calls a “premature closing of our accounts with reality.”

Below I defend agnosticism as a stance toward the existence of God, interpretations of quantum mechanics and theories of consciousness. When considering alleged answers to these three riddles, we should be as picky as my old friend Gallagher.

Why do we exist? The answer, according to the major monotheistic religions, including the Catholic faith in which I was raised, is that an all-powerful, supernatural entity created us.

This deity loves us, as a human father loves his children, and wants us to behave in a certain way. If we’re good, He’ll reward us. If we’re bad, He’ll punish us. (I use the pronoun “He” because most scriptures describe God as male.)

My main objection to this explanation of reality is the problem of evil. A casual glance at human history, and at the world today, reveals enormous suffering and injustice.

If God loves us and is omnipotent, why is life so horrific for so many people? A standard response to this question is that God gave us free will; we can choose to be bad as well as good.

The late, great physicist Steven Weinberg, an atheist, who died in July, slaps down the free will argument in his book Dreams of a Final Theory.

Noting that Nazis killed many of his relatives in the Holocaust, Weinberg asks: Did millions of Jews have to die so the Nazis could exercise their free will? That doesn’t seem fair. And what about kids who get cancer? Are we supposed to think that cancer cells have free will?

On the other hand, life isn’t always hellish. We experience love, friendship, adventure and heartbreaking beauty. Could all this really come from random collisions of particles?

Even Weinberg concedes that life sometimes seems “more beautiful than strictly necessary.”

If the problem of evil prevents me from believing in a loving God, then the problem of beauty keeps me from being an atheist like Weinberg. Hence, agnosticism.

THE PROBLEM OF INFORMATION


Quantum mechanics is science’s most precise, powerful theory of reality. It has predicted countless experiments, spawned countless applications.

The trouble is, physicists and philosophers disagree over what it means, that is, what it says about how the world works.

Many physicists—most, probably—adhere to the Copenhagen interpretation, advanced by Danish physicist Niels Bohr. But that is a kind of anti-interpretation, which says physicists should not try to make sense of quantum mechanics; they should “shut up and calculate,” as physicist David Mermin once put it.

Philosopher Tim Maudlin deplores this situation. In his 2019 book Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory, he points out that several interpretations of quantum mechanics describe in detail how the world works.

These include the GRW model proposed by Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber; the pilot-wave theory of David Bohm; and the many-worlds hypothesis of Hugh Everett.

But here’s the irony: Maudlin is so scrupulous in pointing out the flaws of these interpretations that he reinforces my skepticism. They all seem hopelessly kludgy and preposterous.

Maudlin does not examine interpretations that recast quantum mechanics as a theory about information.

For positive perspectives on information-based interpretations, check out Beyond Weird by journalist Philip Ball and The Ascent of Information by astrobiologist Caleb Scharf.

But to my mind, information-based takes on quantum mechanics are even less plausible than the interpretations that Maudlin scrutinizes.

The concept of information makes no sense without conscious beings to send, receive and act upon the information.

Introducing consciousness into physics undermines its claim to objectivity. Moreover, as far as we know, consciousness arises only in certain organisms that have existed for a brief period here on Earth.

So how can quantum mechanics, if it’s a theory of information rather than matter and energy, apply to the entire cosmos since the big bang?

Information-based theories of physics seem like a throwback to geocentrism, which assumed the universe revolves around us.

Given the problems with all interpretations of quantum mechanics, agnosticism, again, strikes me as a sensible stance.

MIND-BODY PROBLEMS

The debate over consciousness is even more fractious than the debate over quantum mechanics. How does matter make a mind?

A few decades ago, a consensus seemed to be emerging. Philosopher Daniel Dennett, in his cockily titled Consciousness Explained, asserted that consciousness clearly emerges from neural processes, such as electrochemical pulses in the brain.

Francis Crick and Christof Koch proposed that consciousness is generated by networks of neurons oscillating in synchrony.

Gradually, this consensus collapsed, as empirical evidence for neural theories of consciousness failed to materialize.

As I point out in my recent book Mind-Body Problems, there are now a dizzying variety of theories of consciousness. Christof Koch has thrown his weight behind integrated information theory, which holds that consciousness might be a property of all matter, not just brains.

This theory suffers from the same problems as information-based theories of quantum mechanics. Theorists such as Roger Penrose, who won last year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, have conjectured that quantum effects underpin consciousness, but this theory is even more lacking in evidence than integrated information theory.

Researchers cannot even agree on what form a theory of consciousness should take. Should it be a philosophical treatise?

A purely mathematical model? A gigantic algorithm, perhaps based on Bayesian computation? Should it borrow concepts from Buddhism, such as anatta, the doctrine of no self? All of the above? None of the above?

Consensus seems farther away than ever. And that’s a good thing. We should be open-minded about our minds.

So, what’s the difference, if any, between me and Gallagher, my former friend? I like to think it’s a matter of style. Gallagher scorned the choices of others. He resembled one of those mean-spirited atheists who revile the faithful for their beliefs.

I try not to be dogmatic in my disbelief, and to be sympathetic toward those who, like Francis Collins, have found answers that work for them.

Also, I get a kick out of inventive theories of everything, such as John Wheeler’s “it from bit” and Freeman Dyson’s principle of maximum diversity, even if I can’t embrace them.

I’m definitely a skeptic. I doubt we’ll ever know whether God exists, what quantum mechanics means, how matter makes mind.

These three puzzles, I suspect, are different aspects of a single, impenetrable mystery at the heart of things. But one of the pleasures of agnosticism—perhaps the greatest pleasure—is that I can keep looking for answers and hoping that a revelation awaits just over the horizon.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-god-quantum-mechanics-and-consciousness-have-in-common/

Great thread.

FP-worthy.

Amoto94:
I remember mentioning here that Trevor should be given a chance in midfield due to his ball playing abilities and physical strength and I was laughed at that he's not Chelsea quality, though Ibime differed and said he will come good as a CB. Well done to Trevor he's done himself a whole lot of good, his upside will be tremendous if he can maintain his composure and if he doesn't reach that he will be a good squad player at worst.

Nice observation.

BewareOf419:
God will perfect your healing Mr OP, it's just a matter of time. I feel your pains and suffering

Lols.