₦airaland Forum

Difrent:
He has no choice than to dobale

Apart from Ladoja being instrumental to his becoming Governor, Ladoja is now his king.

Long live the King

And not to talk about the fact that Ladoja is more than old enough to be his father!

20. Complaints to or against moderators must be sent privately. Please don't disobey, disrespect, or defame them.

weslay:
The fact that a male colleague will grope you-a married woman, shows that you have a problem setting boundaries.

I see this happen every day in my office and just feel sad for the husbands. Because most women today don't have self awareness, they accept anything. You see them laughing sheepishly instead of confronting the male colleague.

Why are you feeling sad for the husbands ?
Is there anything the husband is losing because his wife enjoys herself playing with other men ?

Openyamind111:
Different strokes for different folks.. ise te se je tete, e le je dagunro be..

I love the òwe you added, very apt 👍.
Is dagunro a kind of vegetable ?

kingbee90:
This is nepotism at it's peak.
When Agbadorians want to play their yeye politics, they call Tinubu a "Southern president" but when they want to share juicy government positions, they give it to themselves & start shouting that the South must do 8 years.

Well, 2027 is not far at all.

What is going to happen in 2027 ?
Let me know your plan maybe I can assist

Mirasteel:
Successful Nigerian men hardly settle for Nigerian women.

Do you mean successful footballer or ALL successful Nigerians ?

Wonders shall never end.

Someone should advise Seun that there are more intelligent approaches to make people post sensible contributions than forcing them to type 40 characters.

Nostalemate:
FINALLY !!!

shout-out to all Chess Players on Nairaland.

Hi. A chess player here.
You wan chop some beating for lichess ?

Don't spam the forum by advertising in the wrong places or posting the same content many times.

madridguy:
Girls always like bad looking guys. I think she want to be seen around nigga/mafia and its very bad she paid with her life.

Make we dey listen to our parent.

I don't think it's about wanting to be seen around "nigga/mafia", rather it is more about the freedom she has to be a bad girl herself, sexually and otherwise. If the boyfriend is a "good" guy, she will have to behave like a good girl herself, and that can be boring. But with a bad guy, she will be more free to explore her sexuality with him without pretending and do all sorts of silly things to have fun. This is what I think generally makes bad guys more appealing to girls, especially girls who are shallow in thinking.

It is a sign that Christianity and other religions are now just mere social gathering for fun and entertainment.

Lukuluku69:
Expected.

Drop calls, Weak/Bad Internet Connection all get charged.

And why must Data I subscribed for "Expired" and I need to buy more to use it? I bought it already and in just a Space of Weeks/Days?

This is actually a brilliant thought.
I think Nigerians should protest against the traditional idea of data having an expiration period. Buying of data should be the same like buying airtime for calls. Once you buy it, it should be yours until you finish it and buy a new one.
Perhaps subscription based data should be for UNLIMITED DATA that you use within a particular period, just like we subscribe for cable TV and different online services. But when you buy a specific quantity of data, then it should not expire until you finish it.

PulsingPurple:
Hello sir, good evening...

I don't know if it's just me, but today's response looks soo long. Maybe my brain is having a slow day, taking too much time to read through. 😅

I just thought to pause everything and commend you.

There's a feeling you get when you taste good food after eating something you didn't even realise was bad for a long time.

There's a feeling you get when you see people talk like simple logical humans online after being used to erratic conversations (I know I'm also guilty of cause these erratic conversations in the first place, I hope I never go back there).

Trust you're doing well?



Yes that was the thought.

And yhh, from the normal physical word's perspective, the truth about God should fall into this category.
But then for people who believe in the supernatural, obviously the truth has to be exactly what the Supreme Being says it is.
So to me, the truth is whatever God says it is.
Then we'd still have the liberty of believing (more like accepting to believe) something else.
So still Objective Truth and Personal Belief, but this time around there's a fixed standard for determining the objective truth.



Of what benefit would this conversation be if I don't attempt to address some of the my thoughts on these:
All my opinions here.

1. I think playing the role of a judge comes with the task of deep research. Researching to understand.
A judge would have to understand so many things like personality, backstory, reason, details... Stuff like that.
Some people do love to ask why God allows bad things go unpunished, then proceed to do bad things, and then also proceed to ask God why He punishes them... I think that's one thing you can think about.

After looking into the personality of God, there's some consistent behavioural patterns/character you can start to see.
For instance storytelling, mystery, repeated symbolism, surprise... Stuff like that.
Liberty of choice, after explaining the exact consequences of each.

I think there's a lot to understand before judging.

Then after everything, what is life?
What if He takes life only when He knows the rest of it will be meaningless to Him and to the owner, to be restored back at a time where it will be way more meaningful and full of second chances?

Thought: Does an actual father often take away the lives of their children when they start over abusing it or when he's protecting them from something, etc.? Like restricting the social life of a child who's a nuisance to society, or when there's nuisance out in the society.

Yhh I understand some of the reasons may seem (barbaric), but times change, different generations see different things differently.

2. I won't even go into the details but from the same Scriptures you were exposed to, I've read, concluded and found groups of people who've concluded that that idea is false to large extents.
The vivid picture of hell that's been painted by the church for decades now is not even in the Scriptures. Plenty of those things were conclusions drawn from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. We could dive in, or you could take these cues to do a little research.
The Bible just shows many rough sketches of what judgement would look like and the original words used in the Bible doesn't even translate to the definitions of hell we have now. And just like with plenty other things, there's much symbolic representation of things, doesn't necessarily have to be a literal interpretation.

The summary of what I believe about life, death and judgement as a whole is this:
• God is a just, impartial judge. Whatever you can imagine, that properly counts as unfair treatment or impartiality, God will likely not do that.
• Men do evil, became evil by nature, know the moral status of a majority of their actions.
• God sees the heart, motive behind the actions of every man.
• God eventually rewards every right action appropriately, condemns for every wrong action appropriately.
• This as you'd expect happens after giving everyone a chance to correct their mistakes here.

At the end of the day a just Judge will sentence you to whatever punishment you rightly deserve for your action, after considering motive, influence, disposition (like remorse).

And if God is a just Judge, there's no burning in hell forever for some basic set of wrongdoings. Unless of course there's certain sins that might require that. (Which I really really doubt).

3. Well, I think intelligence and compassion like many other things will be relative. What seems intelligent to you might not seem intelligent enough to someone twice as wise. I get it though, I do ask the exact same questions at times, in other ways.
But I've given things you can reflect on that covers that aspect in the other responses.


Ohhhh I see. Fair point.

Just like white light giving off a whole spectrum of colours that seemed like they weren't there before, if you're familiar with those parts of physics.

But don't you think this Energy has to somehow have a mechanism for choosing what to dispense from itself, and how to change form to give off such elaborately detailed results?
One of the only ways energy can be out to use is when it's "harnessed" so?? Shouldn't there be something harnessing this Eternal Infinite Energy? Whether in itself of independent of itself.

Meanwhile have you heard of the word Yahweh and the concept behind it? The struggle with understanding the original words that translated into it...

The word is what the Biblical God was said to give as His name.
After many people struggled with understanding it and how it should be translated, some people stood to agree that God said something like, "I AM" to Moses in a complex way that makes it sound like "I am that which I am/that which I will be".

Again, gives the same energy as your Eternal Infinite Energy just casually existing, becoming other things.


I don't know... The point is seen but still doesn't seem to work well as a point to me.
You're still saying God having a personality would invalidate his God-ness but I still think the fact that the creation and the creator seem to possess the possibility of doesn't necessarily mean anything bad for the creator, just part of the whole mirroring stuff.
Can't really place my head around it so I'll leave it there.

But what if it's the emotions along with independent logic and all that that makes up sentience? So God being God has all that in order to be sentient. Then mirrors all those characteristics into us in order for us to be sentient as well?

And you know every emotion has its own use. The issue would be when emotions can't be controlled, are used wrongly.

Then again, being subject to external influences (not control) isn't necessary bad right?
As a creator I can make a dish that gives me pleasure when I eat it, without it taking away my superiority by claiming it controls me, right?

For the idea of good and bad, I was just trying to compose a thought when I realised all I was saying was an interpretation of something called Divine Command Theory. Looking it up will pass the thought better than I ever could.

But yhh, that'll only apply to people who already believe in the first place.


Actually the thought makes a lot of sense. I've taken it with me already, adding it as another layer of understanding.

And yhh humans by nature are curious beings. Then also sometimes they just feign curiosity to mask other agendas... 😏


Yhh that was the precise point. And yes the reverse is also true, the argument goes both ways unfortunately...


Exactly, we can't see the purpose. 😅
So then what better explanation do we have given the extent of intent, complexity and attention to detail, than to say we're just test-runs of some sort of project, or some pleasure project? Or the answer is beyond our realm, in the hands of some sort of creator...


What can I say?
We hold similar beliefs on some of these things.

Also looks easy to understand why you'd think in some of these ways.


Ahh!! What better way to surprise me? 😂
It's mixed feelings honestly...


Ohh, bold statements.
At least you know in detail what you stand for: Not Atheism per se, not anti-Christianity, just something logical.

Back then I used to say actual Christianity shouldn't be called a religion. At its basic form, just do whatever is right and you're good to go. Denomination-based doctrines spoilt things for us.


I'm somehow betting that if there was a book with clear instructions and explanations (there are), people will still twist it. 😅
Takes us back to the gender talk and truth being a personal stuff... Who decides what's a woman and why/how did people leave the hard scientific facts to convince themselves of other stuff?

It'll also be the whole idea of humans just chasing dust... Leaving the instructions and explanations that are obvious and straightforward and looking for meaning in between lines of letters that were casually written without the intention of it being included as part of a Bible.

Thirdly, according to the Scriptures, the God I believe in kinda just loves speaking in riddles and mystery—parables. If He's actually God and that's His own nature, who are we to complain?
According to Scriptures too, humans by nature are somehow referred to as inquisitive.
So wouldn't it make sense that we complement each other? A mysterious God and His inquisitive creation, Him leaving clues, us digging them out. Maybe that's part of His definition of "pleasure".

Whatever the case sha, the perceived damage seems to be done and I can see why you say so

Good evening bro.
I'm not sure I have any important comment to make on your reply at this time. But it's been nice having this conversation with you 🤗 🤝.
Wishing you all the best in your worldly and spiritual journey 🙏

MaxInDHouse:
This is a flimsy excuse!
I told you what happened but it's obvious you just feel like accusing the Bible God for what the nicest person you can think of would have done.
Go through the world map today and you'll see that the land of Canaan is in the center so that people in the East and those in the West could learn from them the standard God set.
The whole earth belongs to this God and choosing a portion to establish His worship can't be ruled out so after sending a warning signal to all the inhabitants of Canaan whoever dares Him is ready to die.
Of course people back then only obey the God whose worshipers are the mightiest army therefore what made the inhabitants of Canaan back then think they can stop the Almighty God and His worshipers?

Well, according to what is recorded in the bible, the reason why god promised the land of Canaan to the Israelites is NOT because it's in the center of anything (you're the one making this up!), it was simply because it was a land flowing with milk and honey .
According to the bible, his "worshippers" were slaves in Egypt for many decades before they miraculously escape one day. Why do you think this is sufficient to make the other nation fear him and abandon their lands (which they have been living in for centuries) for his people ? A god that his own people often rebel against!

MaxInDHouse:
This is the reason why i said you haven't studied the Bible with His Witnesses!

Don't you think it's a very serious problem if I can only come to understand or learn the truth of the Bible by studying with the "His Witnesses" ? Why should the truth about something so vital be difficult to access ?

God wanted to restore paradise on this planet but first He need a place where people who knows His standards will stay as an example for all other nations who doesn't know Him so He allowed the Israelite (chosen nation) to be enslaved in the world's most powerful nation (Egypt) then He went to Egypt with two feeble octogenarians to release His people without a military force.
So tell me between such a God and those stubborn nations who refused to leave Canaan for Him after hearing what He did to Egypt who is WICKED?
Remember that all the nations back then believe in their Gods because they feel it's these Gods that's helping them to win battles so if the God of Israel can conquer Egypt without a military force is that not enough warning sign for them to leave Canaan for His worshipers?

Why couldn't an all-powerful god that supposedly created trillions of galaxies (with billions of stars in each galaxy, and tens of planets around each star) simply turn the wilderness to a permanently habitable place for the Israelite rather than having them murder other people to occupy their lands (which were flowing with milk and honey ) ?
Wouldn't converting the wilderness to a fertile land flowing with milk and honey be a more sensible way for god to demonstrate his power ?
And again why was it difficult for this god to make a tiny nation of Israel to obey him ?
Wouldn't it make more sense if god made ALL the people of the world HIS people at the same time rather than choosing a single nation (who he had to threaten to destroy so many times) ?
You see, the stories recorded in the bible about god's actions don't let me see him to possess enough intelligence to have created a single planet, let alone the universe!

MaxInDHouse:
You're wrong here!
Because all normal people ask questions like:
How did life begin?
Why are we here?
Why do innocent people suffer?
What happens to us when we die?
Will suffering ever end?
If 98% love peace why do much wars?

All these questions Jehovah's Witnesses answered convincingly so what stops me from becoming one of them?

How many Muslims do you know that have converted from Islam to JW? And doesn't Islam itself have answers to the questions you listed up there ?
To the best of my knowledge, converting from Islam to JW is rare, and that is why I'm interested in hearing about your conversion story ?
Did you make findings about all the available Christian denominations and decided JW is the best ? I believe you can see the reason for my curiosity.

God loves people so there is a provision for sincere and honest hearted people who lived and died in false religions for instance He said about them.

For when people of the nations, who do not have law, do by nature the things of the law, these people, although not having law, are a law to themselves. They are the very ones who demonstrate the matter of the law to be written in their hearts, while their conscience is bearing witness with them, and by their own thoughts they are being accused or even excused.

God will resurrect both righteous and unrighteous people {Act 24:15} the righteous are people who knew God's laws and lived by the laws the unrighteous are people who don't know God's laws but lived and died by their own conscience so God will give them a second chance after Satan and his demons has been locked up for thousand years by then only Jehovah's Witnesses will be practicing their religion so no more confusion but whoever refuse to join us then will be allowed to live for just a hundred years before he die naturally as a youth! Isaiah 65:20

So our God has a purpose for both those who knew the truth and those who doesn't know it but as for wicked people who doesn't care at all their death means their end because they have no good records for which God needs to remember them for! Psalms 9:11

So essentially you're saying that if I'm not a JW member (nor a Christian) and I don't even worship God , I can still make "heaven" as long as I live "righteously" ?
How do you interpret John 14:6 ?

etrouble:
They want to tie down Makinde. But Makinde is Tinubu’s boy. Tinubu exchanged Presidency for free ride to Governorship with Makinde the other time. Not that Makinde wouldn’t defeat the APC candidate, but the exchange made it easy for Makinde, if not, you all know Ibadan boys no go gree for anybody, blood for flow everywhere.

So Tinubu still has Makinde with him

Makinde is nobody's boy.
Tinubu is certainly much stronger politically, but if Nigerians were wiser they would prefer Makinde over Tinubu.

The way I see it, things are aligning in an interesting way to give Makinde a good chance at the presidency. Personally, I strongly believe Makinde is more than capable to transform Nigeria to the country of our dreams.

Samantha125:
But I don't get it, what is a man's duty in a relationship?🤔🤔🤔

There are actually no laws about the responsibility of a man (or woman) in a relationship. All we have are just norms and traditions.
One of the most notable things men normally and traditionally do in relationships is to take care of the women as best as they can. But these days, most women have developed an entitlement mentality about what the man MUST do, and the men too are beginning to seriously challenge the rationality of the age-long tradition of inconveniencing themselves to take care of a woman (especially one that may turn out to not be worth it).
Why do you think the tradition of men taking care of women they are in a relationship should be sustained ?

PulsingPurple:
Yhh, objective truth is what it's called?
Trying to establish that whatever it is, no one can actually know cos like who decides? For instance just yesterday, a woman was anything with a XX chromosomes (I hope), but now people are pushing that it's just a matter of choice.
Every knowledge that counts as truth now can somehow just get changed (and I mean the useful changes like proper corrections too). So it's like TRUTH in itself is something that's we're not even capable of knowing, we're just able to have the privilege of getting all that context we need, and then we can conveniently choose to believe. Was just pondering there, nothing serious at all, if you understand the thought process there.

Yeah, I get you. You're basically saying some truths are unknowable, so everyone just believes whatever makes the most sense to them. And since there's no ultimate judge for who's right or wrong, everyone just hold on to their own "truth".
I guess you may also be insinuating that the truth about God may fall in this category of unknowable/unverifiable truth.

Bro, I mean... No. 😂
Not a bad interpretation of what I asked oo but more like adjusting the unliked characters of this "God" you grew up to know, based on the template.
I was trying to see if your acceptable version of "God" is who I already see my God as.

1. Perhaps if the biblical god were not as tribalistic and murderous as the bible accounts show him to be, I would find him much more acceptable.
2. If he didn't create hell for people to burn in forever as punishment for different petty sins, then I would like him more.
3. If he demonstrates more intelligence and compassion in dealing with people, realising that they cannot be entirely blamed for their flaws (because they are largely controlled by their biology and psychology), he would seem more real to me.

I guess starting from scratch is still acceptable.


Noooo, not at all. The kinds of things I love to hear.

Does your "God" need an accompanying personality as well, interested in his character too?

No, the Energy I am proposing as the source of creation is completely devoid of personality. Characteristics and personalities merely emerge in the various things the energy transform to: greenness of vegetation, speed of light, gravity around massive bodies, emotions in human beings etc are all qualities that emerged as a result of energy transforming to different things. The energy itself doesn't have those qualities.

But then Eternal Infinite Energy? "Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but can be converted from one form to another", do you see how it wants to match the same energy as "[The monotheistic] God wasn't created, cannot be destroyed, and from Him everything was created, His words converting to the universe as we know it"?

Of course anything that can be considered as the creator or source of the universe must be itself "uncreatable" and indestructible. But the idea of a personal God with certain qualities is problematic for being the ultimate source, because it makes us start to question how such specific personalities or qualities emerged in such an entity. Why is he good and not evil ? Why does he have certain emotions? These questions imply that something must have caused the entity to have the specific set of qualities it has, meaning that it is itself subject to something external, thereby invalidating it/him as the ultimate source.

Meanwhile I'm just learning something new also.
You know how one of our arguments for the existence of God is that from our observation on Earth, everything created has a creator, a source somewhere. And that our creator will ultimately be God.
Their immediate response will be: So who created God.
Even when there's other elaborate ways to try and explain the logic there, what if you've just given the best answer, the exception: Energy. Energy can not be created nor destroyed...

I imagine them proceeding to ask: What if the initial energy was just that dust in the Big?

It is well 😂

The simple problem is that our mind simply can't process the idea of something being eternal. Our brain power is just not equipped for something like that. So it will still actually make sense to question the source of this "energy". But since we also know logically that something has to be the ultimate source of everything we see around us, our best bet is just to look for the best candidate that could be the ultimate creator. So to me, based on what is known scientifically (for now), an Eternal Infinite Energy is what makes the most sense to me as the ultimate source of creation. But as I've emphasized before, I'm open to other possibilities and theories.

No I meant like the idea of creating something that simulates sentience.

Like, if God wanted to create stuffs that simulate sentience, the sentient characters themselves will try to reflect the qualities He's already seen over there. Their environment might try to follow some patterns that already happen over there. Same with the humans creating their own simulation of the world in open world games.

And this then would imply that maybe we didn't create God's that think like us, but we think the way we do because a God tried to make us similar to themselves in that aspect.

In terms of creation in general (asides the sentience part), we already know that every intentional creation is made with purpose, not to mirror. (As you've noted).
With "God" for instance you could say He's created some useful stuff in his realm that you've not been aware of yet, just like we create ours here.

The purpose for this "God" creating us?
I would say what I saw in the scriptures, and what makes the most sense so far to me: For His pleasure.

Wish I had other things I believed instead
Most times it perfectly makes sense to me, seeing like the video game analogy or most things that were created by man.

A few times it doesn't... Like mehn, why? (I do get my answers tho, I can live with them)

I get you now. I agree that if we specifically want to create sentient entities we will most likely take a cue or inspiration from what is already available in our environment and then perhaps make some modifications. So it makes sense to assume that if we are indeed created by a sentient creator, then part of his personalities will show up in us. But the reverse is also true. If we, as sentient beings, want to imagine a sentient entity that supposedly created us, then part of the attributes and characteristics we will ascribe to this entity will most probably mirror our own personalities.

As for the purpose of the universe (and us), I think if we take religion and religious teachings out of the equation and just observe the universe objectively, there is no real purpose in the grand scheme of things. On some level though certain things may serve some valuable purposes: like the Sun sustaining life on earth, certain microorganisms being essential in the human body to carry out different vital processes, or an individual living his life for a particular cause. But it doesn't seem like there's any specific purpose to it all.

I'm already seeing a lot...



Omooo
Sometimes what I try to see is: asides everything that's a concern to you, would you be comfortable signing up for Christianity?

Like in your case, what if in the future you got convinced that the details in these things you believed is quite (far) different from the picture you see.

At the same time there's many doctrines flying around so again, who decides what's TRUTH and what isn't.

Actually if I put aside certain events recorded in the bible (especially in the old testament) and some core Christian beliefs (heaven and hell, Jesus dying for our sins), Christianity in its modern form is largely appealing. Far more good than evil have been done through Christianity and Christians generally just want to live good lives and go to heaven when they die. So even though I believe Christianity is based on falsehoods, I think Christianity is good for the world for the most part. It is a great social gathering for people to meet others and have fun (which is part of what makes us human).
I still go to church once in a while by the way (I always enjoy the singing and dancing, and sometimes interesting motivational sermons by intelligent preachers about general life matters). And sometimes when I see people in such joyous mood while singing and dancing, I wish I could also throw away my rationality and be like them.
While atheism is liberating (you're no longer living under the shackles of religion), but if you ask me if I would rather have the whole world become atheists, I would say no. I'm not too sure about how good it will be for the world if the vast majority of people become atheists. When people realise there's no sky daddy monitoring their every move and who has written some laws they have to obey, I don't know what they would choose to do with that freedom.
So summarily, I acknowledge that Christianity (especially in its modern form) is generally good for the world (if we regard it merely as a social organisation), but I do not believe in the core tenets of the religion.

1. I can't really check, but what if the representation of heaven and hell that's allegedly in the new testament, isn't even there at all. Just misinterpretations, fabrications?

This is actually a big issue for me. If the bible is the best means the "all-knowing" god could think of to convey the truth to the people, then he has failed very woefully. Many passages in the bible, which are supposedly meant to address crucial issues, are ambiguous and open to different interpretations. This is why it's very easy for pastors to form different denominations based on their own interpretation and understanding of what god wants. And since there is no final judge, everyone keeps believing his own "truth" (as you would say), and the confusion continues!

Then for the rest, it still comes down to the whole beliefs and truths from here.

I see all you're saying sha. Sounds as logical as it can get, then there's always room to introduce more logic, if you want.
At least to fully understand the thing that you don't agree with. So that your disagreement isn't coming from a place of ignorance.

So one of my main issues with the biblical god is promising the land of other people to the Israelites and eventually ordering the Israelite to murder everyone in those lands. As a believer in a "loving" god, how do you rationalize this act ?

Which parts of the bible have you had to question seriously when you started to study the bible, and which explanations did you come up with eventually that make sense to you ?

Are there still parts of the bible that don't quite make sense to you ?

MaxInDHouse:
With this i am okay with anyone claiming ATHEIST what i can't tolerate is someone trying to disprove the Bible God i will show the person that He is the one and only God that you have nothing to say as evidence against Him!

The claim about the biblical god's existence or inexistence is difficult to prove absolutely. So at the end of the day, everyone is left to believe or disbelieve whatever makes sense to them based on the evidence available to them. I examined the evidence (the stories and accounts in the bible) and I'm not convinced that such a stupid, petty tribal god could be the creator of this wonderful universe. It is just as simple as that.

The Bible says:

The fruitage of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,  mildness, self-control.[color =blue]Against such things there is no law[/color]. Galatians 5:22-23


Against the spirit of the Bible God there is no law you can fabricate because He is Holy (Perfect)

Thanks!

How did the biblical god exhibit the fruits of the spirit you mentioned when he was commanding the Israelite to occupy the lands of other people and to slaughter every living thing they find on those lands: animals, children, women etc ? Deuteronomy 20:16-17.

MaxInDHouse:
Why not ask what the Bible says about the highlighted instead of concluding based on what other religions told you?

Well the Bible God has no intention of roasting people in fire that's what false religions teaches. Jeremiah 7:31
God said since we all have expiration dates only those who complied with His requirements will be spared from this condition as He will reward them with immortality! Psalms 37:9-11, 29

As for death God promised to erase it forever! Isaiah 25:8

Well you may be shocked to know that i was a Muslim and there are JWs in all Islamic countries throughout the world!

Jeremiah 7:31 is talking about something completely different, the verse is not relevant to any discussion about hell fire. Perhaps you should take some time to read the entire chapter and understand the context.

A more relevant verse is Matthew 25:41-42. Read that and tell me what it means.

Yeah, I'm truly shocked to know you converted from Islam to JS. Your case is certainly an exceptional one. I'm curious to learn about the circumstances that led to your conversion, if you don't mind to share.

In any case, the point I was trying to make is that the vast majority of people generally end up following whatever religion they are born into. (Why do you think this is the case by the way?). And if a person's religion is now an important factor that determines whether they go to heaven or hell, this means those who are born into the wrong religion (through no fault of theirs !) will at a great disadvantage. This doesn't seem to me like the system a loving and intelligent god will use to punish or reward people.

PulsingPurple:
True


Exactly... 😅

Emphasis in bold, What's the definition of TRUTH.
Me I sha know that TRUTH might also be considered as "relative". As you've said with the elephant analogy, all blind men carefully acknowledged the elephant, concluded, were all right, but to each, the other wasn't telling the TRUTH.

There's something I've been focusing on lately, Point Blank Fallacy.
The fact that what my point is valid doesn't mean other people's points are invalid. Many arguments assume that their points must stand—point blank.
Politicians loot money so we conclude: All politicians are wicked.
True but first of all, not all. Secondly, humans in general have natures, humans tend to be wicked.

A majority of the time, people who speak with point blank assertions just do so with more of emotions and less logic.

I think TRUTH in itself exists, then truth at a personal level of acceptance exists too, so everyone ends up choosing for themselves what is true and what isn't, even after seeing what the assumed 'Judge' dictates as true.

At the bolded, I think the "personal truth" you're talking about is what is called belief. But regardless of what everyone believes as the truth at a personal level, objective truth
still exists. But when the objective truth is hard to establish, personal truths thrive, everyone feels their own personal version of the truth is the real truth 😐

Well well well... What then fits your acceptable definition of God?

Specs, character, measurements..? 😏

You're basically telling me to create a god in my imagination (as people have done through the ages) and tell you what it looks like
Well, I've actually thought about this before. When I considered the insane vastness of the universe (hundreds of billions of stars in each galaxy and trillions of galaxy in just the observable part of the universe alone, keeping in mind that the Sun, which is just an average star, is millions of times bigger than the earth), and the potentiality that each star probably has a planet revolving around it with intelligent lives, the best candidate my mind could imagine as the creator is an Eternal Infinite Energy.
Scientifically, it is established that ENERGY can neither be created nor destroyed (which essentially means it is eternal). Furthermore, we have come to understand that everything in the universe is just energy expressing itself in different forms (heat, light, photons, atoms, living organisms, stars, black holes are all just energy, in different forms). But in this case, the energy is not just "creating", rather it is transforming itself to different forms through different processes.

Any objections on this idea ?

At the bolded, sure.

Then you say something about the assumed personalities of God seems too human-like, therefore it's easy to dismiss the assumptions as imaginations.

But what if the conclusion you make there should actually be the opposite?

Think of game devs creating game world's, characters, features, stuff like that... Isn't there much of a striking resemblance between them and their creations? And rightly so. Cos I couldn't imagine anything less.

Like what entity should be capable of creating emotions, if he doesn't have emotions himself?
Or capable of creating sets of interconnected functionalities, if he doesn't have things like that going on in his realm?

It's always right to assume creations mirror whatever their creator already had. Not to 1:1 levels, not to perfection at all, but just enough to count.

Actually humans rarely create things that mirror them. The game example you cited is an exception (a very rare one) in which the developer specifically wants to simulate his world in a game. Look at all of the millions of things humans have created, how many of them are like us ?
But I guess it can be argued also that the creation of the earth specifically is an attempt by the creator (God) to simulate the realities of his realm on earth 🤔.

But this leads to a question : When humans create something (car, phone, bridge, electricity etc) it is almost always to serve a particular purpose. If we assume the creator is also like us in that regard, what purpose would you say he had in mind when he created the universe ?

Ehhh, who won't be tired of aimless arguments 😅😅

Was hoping to see details of what lead to your conclusions. You've said a bit about God's assumed character falling below your expectations from a God. Asides that?

Mind you, this exact reason is why many people don't believe the religion next door. Like Christians saying that the kinds of things Allah allegedly said and commanded are the exact reasons why they can never believe. So yhh that's fair point.

If you want more details, I think you will have to ask me questions specifically on the kind of details you want or whatever you need me to clarify about my stance which I tried to state clearly in a previous reply.

Asides that, how about the good sides?
How about the picture of Christianity that Jesus and his early followers pushed?
Any objections there?

I actually do like the personality of Jesus especially with regard to how he preached about and demonstrated love, kindness and godly living.
The main issues I have with Jesus' doctrine are the following :
1. The idea of heaven and hell, which by the way seem to me as inventions of Jesus as they were not talked about in the old testament (I stand to be corrected though). The idea that a loving God will condemn people to hell for some petty sins (like fornication or not believing a particular thing) just doesn't make sense to me
2. The requirement for believing in Jesus as the Lord and Saviour for one to be saved is also something that doesn't make sense to me. I consider billions of people that lived before jesus and those that live after Jesus but without getting to hear anything about Jesus, let alone believe. What is the fate of these people ?
3. The belief that Jesus is the son of God or that he is even God himself and that he came to the world to die for our sins is also something I find ridiculous.

Dtruthspeaker:
Did you see the Catholic church that was damaged in the middle East?

It clearly tells you that they have heard about God and the Bible

And shey you know that this is a change of Post exactly as the op said you people do when you cannot give any logical answer?

So you see you are proving the Op right!

Why are you being silly? That reply wasn't meant for you. I was having a conversation with someone and it lead to me asking some questions as a follow-up.

Dtruthspeaker:
It would prove that your refusal to acknowledge God's existence is simply based on the exercise your power and right to refuse a thing.

Exactly like the proverbial horse that you can force to the river but you can never force it to drink.

So, let's see if you can prove us wrong.

I do not believe in the existence of the biblical god because to me the evidence provided for its existence and the stories told about it are not convincing enough. It's simply like you telling me something and I refuse to believe it because it doesn't sound true to me. Is there a problem with that ?
I didn't tell you that I can absolutely prove or disprove the existence of the biblical god. I simply don't believe such god exists or is real for certain reasons.

MaxInDHouse:
I love this because that's exactly what all sincere and honest hearted individuals are asking. So i will try to be as brief as possible!
Now let's go straight to the Bible and see the answer Jesus gave to one of his friends when the man asked this same question!

Jesus Kept talking about everlasting life and what those who aren't his disciples will miss so Peter one of his closest confidants asked Jesus:

“Look! We have left all things and followed you; what, then, will there be for us?” Matthew 19:27

Peter asked this same question because himself and others have left all things just to be with Jesus.

Jesus answered:

“Truly I say to you, no one has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not get 100 times more now in this period of time—houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the coming system of things, everlasting life." Mark 10:29-30

So my friend, only Jehovah's Witnesses can connect with millions of people from different nations throughout the earth to make themselves one big and family of peace loving worshipers which God has always wanted and it's only those who made themselves part of this global family of peace that God is ready to give what Jesus called EVERLASTING LIFE!

Okay, everlasting life for witnesses and everlasting damnation (aka burning forever in hell) for others. Nice 👍

Now please tell me (summarily), how or why did you become a member of the JW ?
And also, if you were born somewhere in the middle east to a devout Muslim parents, do you think you would still be a witness ?

Dtruthspeaker:
Just say you know that you have no valid counter to this ss you know you got my points. One of which is that if I say that you do not exist from here to eternity you can never prove it.

If you think you can, then come play with me.

Okay just to play along with you, assuming that it is actually impossible to prove my existence to you (I believe I can prove it actually), what will that itself prove ? What does it imply ?

MaxInDHouse:
[1] The Bible God promised to unite His worshipers and make them go throughout the earth in search of friends of peace {Isaiah 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-3} by the time they gets to understand His word correctly among themselves the whole world will notice it because it will seem as if these people from different nations have started speaking the same language which means there will be understanding among them {Zephaniah 3:9} in fact people will start saying about them "don't mind that religion, they love only their members" because it will be so glaring that there is a strong bond permeating their gathering! John 13:34-35
So when Jesus of Nazareth said there is a kind of fruit expected of the only true religion {Matthew 7:16-18} many sincere people are now getting the sense that this fruit is LOVE! 1John 4:8 compare to John 13:34-35

[2] The true God declared it but you can't know if you refuse to study the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses. Before the year 1931 the whole world only knows Bible carriers as Christians though there are thousands of different religions with contradicting teachings and conflicting doctrines all claiming Christians which is an insult to the Bible God making Him appear like a confusionist {1Corinthans 14:33} but according to His Son all His worshipers supposed to have the same line of thought throughout the world {John 17:22; 1Corinthans 1:10} so after the Bible students association (formed in the late 1800s) got things right the Bible God fulfilled His promise by giving them another group name which makes them totally different from all others claiming Christians:
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES! Isaiah 65:15
Today there is no country where these people can't be found in fact they are in the world's most racist nations yet they are united in faith and love with their fellow believers in other lands!

[3] That is obvious from what we can all see! You said the Bible God is bloodthirsty, tribalistic monster but you'll be shocked to know the truth about Him.
How can you call someone bloodthirsty when the only language ancient people back then understands is violence?
Imagine this God who claims He is the Creator of all things sending two feeble octogenarians to the world's first most powerful king in human history begging Him to release the descendants of Jacob by performing miracles to prove His powers only for this King to call out his own magicians to do the same!
Some people often say God hardened the heart of Pharaoh but they don't know what that phrase means it doesn't mean God is making Pharaoh to disobey Him rather it simply means God didn't touch the man in a way that he will fear.
For instance imagine if God wants to deal with the president of Russia for tackling Ukraine and what God did is to send someone to tell him "stop attacking Ukraine or you will die within seven days" of course the man will take it as a joke but what if he fell sick at the moment and the sickness is getting worse to the point he couldn't even raise his hands? Do you think he won't order his armies to retreat when he notice his condition keeps getting worse as each day passes?
Well that's what the Bible God meant as He allows Pharaoh to continue feeling he is still in control not until he lost his first son along with millions of firstborn in Egypt!
This thing God did to send a warning signal to all the occupants of Canaan that the most high God is coming with the Israelites yet the inhabitants of that land were planning to fight against Him!
Well the words of Rahab a prostitute in Jericho shows that they were stupid! Joshua 2:9-13
Is that the only person who feared God in Canaan?
No!
There was another tribe called Gibeonites! Joshua 9:3-15

Do you know a better way God could have handled the situation?

I really don't have the energy to respond to this now.
But just tell me summarily what do you stand to benefit as Jehovah Witnesses that other Christians or even other people will not have access to ? Or in other words, if I am not a Jehovah's Witness, what am I loosing or what will I lose ?

PulsingPurple:
Well noted sir... You pass the point, I get the it, it's a very common pattern sef:

People start in a certain religion, at some point, they hit a life changing moment and make a final stance.

In your case, Christian to atheist (I think you mean agnostic or something but yhh we understand you well enough that there's no need to ponder on definition of terms).

Then, what if I say there's people who had that turning point but moved from Islam to Christian, or vice versa, or even Christian to Christian?

So yhh very normal to reach the point in life where the brain becomes capable of logical reasoning and one can try to think, draw conclusions and act with intentions.

Personally, I also grew up in a Christian household luckily.
However it was after my own turning point that I became an actual Christian, and I realised the thing I thought to be Christianity, as a supposed Christian for 19 years was flawed.

Spent about 3 years minimum navigating a new approach to the understanding of this God.
Before then, I was just religious enough to know that going to church and praying regularly is good, but after that I've been well aware of every decision I make and every conclusion I draw, of everything I claim to stand for.

So just like something solidified your stance in atheism, for many people here, something also solidified their stance in whatever they chose to walk with. It's not like we're all babbling because we were born here.
Max for instance was Muslim I guess.



Then there's no intention to sway your stance. (I'm low-key saying that the same explanation for your choice is someone else's same explanation for standing firmer in Christianity for instance 😅).

Yeah I am well aware of this paradox.
I think one of the reasons for this is because any sufficiently complex situation is open to being analyzed from different perspectives , and each perspective may lead to a somewhat rational/sensible conclusion. An analogy for this is the popular story about the blind men who were asked to touch/feel an elephant and to describe it afterwards. And because of the size of an elephant, it has many different sides (perspectives) so each blind man ended up describing the animal (drawing conclusions) based on the part of it that was touched/felt.
But I always have some respect for anyone who has come to form their belief or disbelief after honestly, carefully and rationally considering the plausibility/sensibility of such a belief, rather than blindly holding on to a belief because you are born into it (which is the case for the vast majority of people).
While getting to the ultimate truth might be very difficult or at least open-ended, I do believe that when we examine the evidence for a belief honestly, carefully and rationally enough we will learn some truths. But the problem is who is going to be the ultimate judge of what the truth is ? 🤔
For me personally, while I'm open to the possibility of a supreme entity capable of creating the universe, I simply can't see the biblical god [ a god who reduced itself to a petty tribal deity (God of Israel) in a tiny portion of the universe and commanding genocide on other tribes just so he could give some land to his chosen people ] as the mastermind behind this universe. No matter how I consider it, it doesn't make sense to me that the biblical god is the source of the universe.
So while acknowledging that I may be wrong and other people may be able to see the biblical god in a whole different perspective that makes it make sense to them, I think the best I can do for now is still to hold on to what makes sense to me personally.

All is well... always and ever will be
To each a right to his own beliefs after all.

On a normal day the frustration is with people who actually claim they can't process the possibility of a God, especially those who end up being obsessed with every God talk out there.

Meanwhile we could just casually talk about stuffs... There's much you haven't said.

I'm sure people that completely discard the idea of the possibility of a god will have there reasons too. Particularly, almost all gods are largely human-like, either in their physical form or characteristics, suggesting that they could all just be a product of our imagination, creating beings in our minds who are like but with much greater abilities.
But to me personally, I see this universe as a very strange place and there's no telling what could be out there.

At the bolded, yeah we could just discuss stuffs without necessarily trying to debate. And I even don't have much energy these days for religious debates because I've come to realise the futility of it. I've come to realise that nothing really matters after all, whether you believe or not in a god you die eventually and that is the end. So I'm just trying to enjoy the rare privilege I have to exist temporarily as a conscious being on this tiny planet in this insanely vast universe.

Is there anything in particular you would like me to say ?

MaxInDHouse:
Jehovah's Witnesses!

What makes them the "true worshippers" ? Who declared them as such ?
So you're basically saying that billions of other Christians don't know what they are doing ?

PulsingPurple:
I believe you didn't make your points with intentions of debate or anything.

So this is just a casual conversation, casual thoughts. Especially focusing on the last things you said:

What counts as right or wrong?
To an ion it's +be or -ve...
To a computer bit it's 1 or 0.
In boolean, it's true or false.
To a plant it's? See it starts to get complicated? Nutrients or not, light or not, water or not, depending.
To a baby it's? Complicated too? Comfortable or not, happy or not, etc, depending.
As you climb the ladder, you realize that things with a lower capacity for reasoning don't even have the capacity to comprehend what is right or wrong for something of the higher capacity, no matter how much you explained.

A computer bit could evolve tho... Could end up being part of a machine learning model that's able to simulate better reasoning, AI.

Saying all these to say by normal logic, a human wouldn't be capable of reasoning far beyond their scope, to the extent of fully understanding God.

So in summary (from my first reply):
1. The argument that the idea of God can't be right because "I don't believe in any of the personalities I've come to see" can't be counted as valid.
That's basically the same argument behind "relationship na scam".
2. The argument that the idea of God can't be right because "I don't fully understand any of the personalities that I've come to see" can't be counted as valid.
That's almost the same thing like saying a black hole isn't real because I can't see it. By mere definition I wasn't meant to be able to see it.
By mere definition we weren't supposed to fully understand the decision of an entity who's supposedly infinitely more intelligent than ourselves.

All these come in after acknowledging that there's good possibility for a God, and then we're trying to see which one fits our measurements

I know it feels pointless saying most of these things because according to you, you're not in any of these categories.
Just thought to restate it, it's where most of the "atheists" I've encountered approach the arguments from.

Let me state my stance again as an atheist.
Since I do not really know how the universe came about, I'm open to all kinds of possibilities, including the possibility that some supernatural entity did it (though I'm not persuaded this is the case). Now because I was raised in a Christian home, the god I grew up to know is the biblical god, the God of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham. And based on the stories and accounts recorded in the bible about what this god did and said, I was not convinced this biblical god is real. Realising that the biblical god is perhaps the best among all the various gods people believe in, my rejection of the biblical god invariably led to the rejection of all the other (known) gods, thereby making me essentially an atheist.

So as you have rightly noted, the points you are raising (which are sensible by the way) do not really apply to me. If there is something that created the universe (and there ought to be), I believe the nature of such creator might be completely beyond what our limited mind/intellect can grasp. But I maintain that the biblical god CANNOT be this ultimate creator.