₦airaland Forum

chidichris:
wether crocodie, seadog or seabird swallowed johna, [b]the most important thing here is that there was swallow.[/b]the lesson was on his disobident to God's words and the possibilities of God making his ways in our lives.
there was a man (jonah) who disobeyed God and ran into a boat. because of his presence, the boat was disrupted until he was thrown out of the boat.
most of ppl have gone so mad that they have respect for nothing and nobody even God.

OLAADEGBU:
You better believe it, and I truly hope and pray that you have not crossed the line of no return, that is, beyond redemption because this may explain the delusion you are basking in.

You can see evidence of delusion on display right there.  Where in Romans 9 did you see what you are saying, are you sure you are not disillusioned?  If you draw near to God He will draw near to you and if you distance yourself from Him do you think He will become nearer?  Pharaoh hardened his heart against God and of course God permitted his heart to be hardened, it is up to you what kind of heart you want to have.  A heart of clay or of stone that water cannot permeate, if your heart is a heart of clay and water pours on it in the form of rainfall when the sun shines what do you think will happen to the clay?  It will harden up.  Will you now say that it is the fault of the sun? No, it is the state of your heart that will determine what you will get from God.  Check your heart and listen to the word of God below.

He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.  -- Proverbs 29:1

davidylan:
It has to be, if it were true (which it is) it would destroy the very foundation of your argument. I see your point.

the strongest "argument" of the atheist is that he was once a christian and it was all a sham. Same argument you hear from muslims . . . what really is new?

davidylan:
these confused atheists just move from thread to thread.

He already has a bias - the bible is a myth.
He makes up his own hypothesis - the bible holds VERY strongly to names of characters and puts naming most as the core of its narrative.
Then he proceeds to use his FALSE hypothesis to SUBSTANTIATE his bias. - the bible didnt name Pharaoh of that time so its a myth.

davidylan:
How wonderful atheistic logic truly is.

However, bindex CANNOT provide us ample evidence that the bible puts naming principal characters as the core of its narrative. Infact the bible puts the MESSAGE OF CHRIST AND THE CROSS as the core of its narrative and mentions it several times!

The bible doesnt mention the name of David's mother, does not tell us anything about the names of the kings of the Jebusites, Canaanites, Assyrians, Moabites, Midianites, Philistines . . . infact we are never told the name of Moses father and YET Bindex makes his above claim? How silly.

davidylan:
I read through your write-up thoroughly Bindex, that was why i came to my own conclusion. I stand by my point - if you thought the heart-felt faith experience was a farce it was simply because you never truly experienced it. You simply played the typical nigerian christian game of make-believe. I see many "christians" today quote the bible endlessly, are pretty quick to come up with "name it and claim it" quotes, pray endlessly (always for material blessings) but deep down they do not have a deep connection with the Father.

the Christian walk is not about you, it is all about Christ. It is not about your feelings, it is about His command and His will. I am not perfect, there have been times i was tempted to take a step back and live like every other normal atheist but having tasted what it truly means to love God selflessly, to be able to talk to Him and listen to Him talk back, to be able to take silly problems to Him to solve and be amazed when He responds . . . i dont need to be told this isnt make-believe.

It may be a farce to you . . . you are surely entitled to your opinion

JJYOU:
i know seun dont charge to come in here but you have to be carefull the way you talk about God. the pharoahs of this world used words like you used there we know the history go ask the egyptians. you want to be like pharoah? be carefull. we are just one breathe away from being dust like mere men. dont talk above yourself.

OLAADEGBU:
Do you want to know who is deluded?  Read what God has to say about that in 2 Thess. 2:9-12

Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.  And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

- 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

And this states the reason God will permit such strong delusions in this day and age.  If men are determined to go to hell there is nothing else that God can do to rescue them other than to grant them their wishes. Hell is self perpetuating. (Rom.1:21-32).

davidylan:
its funny how atheists allegedly do not care about God YET can be counted on to invade a thread about God.

davidylan:
If you are truly in Christ you never feel like a blind man groping in the dark. I repeat again - "I am a christian" is not simply going to church. It is a heart-to-heart relationship with Christ. You never had that experience . . .

davidylan:
You cant understand what it is to lose your faith when you never had it in the first place. What you had was RELIGION . . . you never had a faith. We have interchanged both words so much that they have now come to represent the same thing . . . they simply are not.

Religion is an outward show, a meaningless label . . . faith is a heart-felt experience.

OLAADEGBU:
Paul's letter to Nairaland's Atheists and their bedfellows (Romans 1:18-22)

Everyone knows there is a God. The evidence is all around us. In fact, the Creator designed the universe so that His many invisible attributes would be “clearly seen” in the things He made, so that we are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).

“For all this they sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous works.” Psalm 78:32. Despite His wonderful work of creation, it is apparent that you guys still don't believe, giving lame excuses as to the reason why you don't believe, even those who have not heard the gospel truth have no excuse because of what God has made plain to everyone. Romans 1:18–21 has a more direct answer for atheists, evolutionists and your bedfellows. Those who have never heard are willfully guilty for rejecting God because God has revealed Himself clearly in the wonders of creation.

“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all impiety and injustice of men, who are seeking to suppress the truth by means of their unrighteous lives.” (Romans 1:18)

God is angry with the sinner everyday. Do you wonder why? God’s anger swells up because men are “suppressing the truth.”

The Greek word translated “suppress” means “holding down,” like chains in a prison. This same word was used to describe Joseph’s imprisonment in Genesis 39. God seethes with anger because unbelievers attempt to “imprison” the truth by their wicked lives.

Yet no matter how hard you guys wrestle to suppress God’s truth, God will not let them put it in a cage. Humans are “seeking”[/i]but failing to suppress the truth.

God’s anger is not ordinary anger. Our sin against what we know about God has reached the point that it would be immoral for God not to act. This anger “is being revealed” from heaven. God lets everyone know about His anger, not just once or occasionally, but continually. All of us know it including you rebels.

God directs this wrath against two things—“impiety” and “injustice.” Impiety, or ungodliness, refers to mankind’s failure to fulfil his obligation to his Creator. He holds the very molecules of our bodies together (1 Corinthians 8:4–6), and He enables the neurons in our brains to fire. So we are indebted to God, not just for health and life but for our ability to move and think. In return, we owe our Creator an infinite debt, we owe Him our complete love and devotion. Failure to pay this debt is impiety.

God’s indignation also swells against our “injustice.” Injustice refers to our failure to treat other human beings who are God’s special creations, with the respect that we know they deserve. When talk about the morality we lack when we abuse or neglect others, we shred God’s [i]Mona Lisa and smash His David into pieces. We commit a great offense against God’s creations, but our offense against their Creator is even greater.

“Because the thing which can be known about God is evident in them, because God made it known to them.” (Romans 1:19)

The verse above shows me that I don’t have to worry about proving God’s existence. According to this verse, God makes Himself evident, open, and plain to everyone. He literally placed evidence “in them.” Apparently God placed a knowledge of Himself within all men, inside their minds, in their hearts, in the very core of their being.

The verb is present tense. God did not reveal Himself in the past and then stop. He continues to reveal Himself within us now.

So when you guys try to appease your consciences and justify your sin, you must suppress your knowledge of God. As we can see in the posts here, you grab at straws to patch together a cage around the truth. But God’s truth breaks free, like a tiger ill-suited for captivity.

The King of Heaven does not rely on petty heralds to share who He is. Nor does He post little notes on bulletin boards, hoping we’ll see them. God Himself takes a personal interest in making sure that each one of us has knowledge of Him.

God knows that all people fight against this knowledge. Jesus could say to everyone what He once said to Saul, a zealous Pharisee, “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:5). He pricks every heart, letting each person know about Him.

“For His invisible attributes are thoroughly known from the creation of the cosmos, being known by means of the things which have been made, whether His eternal power or divinity . . . .” (Romans 1:20)

The Creator is clearly seen in His creation. What can we see about God? His invisible attributes! The Greek verb kathoratai intensifies the standard Greek word meaning “to see.” So we don’t merely “see” God’s attributes, but we literally see them “down” to the core. We clearly perceive, we abundantly know, we thoroughly recognize God’s invisible attributes.

All what you atheists are saying are just bluffings and extrapolations. Everyone sees God clearly, even if you have never seen a Bible or heard about Him.

God reveals Himself in two ways. One is through the special revelation of the Bible. Through the Bible God spells out the path to salvation. God also communicates through the “general” revelation of creation. While it does not replace the saving truths that mankind must learn in the Bible, creation clearly teaches all men and women that God exists and that certain things are true about Him.

We know these things presently and continually. The moment God created the world (cosmos in Greek), His world began proclaiming things about the Creator, and it has continued ever since.

Psalm 19:1–6 is an important Old Testament parallel. God’s creation, surpassing all limits of language, culture, gender, and age, preaches about God constantly and effectively. The world does not need science to acquire knowledge of the Creator. According to the Bible, people already know the Creator and are desperately seeking any excuse to dispute His existence. As 2 Peter 3:5 says, “They deliberately ignore” the evidence that everyone plainly sees.

Romans 1:20 spells out the attributes that we can see in the world and this are God’s eternal nature and divine power. The Greek word for eternal, is related to the Greek word meaning “always.” God has caused an “always-ness” to be evident in the created order, and people connect this “always-ness” with the idea of a personal God.

His divinity, deity, divine nature is “thei-ot-ēs.” This term summarizes all the attributes that make God who He is. So God’s revelation of Himself is pretty all-encompassing.

“. . . so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)

These are sobering words. The wonders of God preach His glory to all men. No man or woman can say, “I did not know” or “The revelation was not clear.” This God, who reveals Himself and knows all hearts, concludes of every man, woman, and child, “They are without excuse.”

What can be so plain and evident, when we behold the heavens and contemplate the celestial bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intelligence, by which all these things are governed?

“For, although they were knowing God, they did not honour Him as God or give thanks.” (Romans 1:21)

Not only did we know about God at one time, we knew Him in person. We “were knowing God.”

Our resident atheists have no right to accuse God of any wrongdoing. You are all guilty because you have willfully turned away. All your mockeries and ad Hominems are only bravado, hiding what you know in your heart about God. You know that the real debate is not about the lame excuses that you present here but it is about the excuse that you want to continue sin, suppressing the truth by so doing.

God has given us ears to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to understand. He could have left us in the dark because of our wilful effort to cage His truth and because of our impiety and injustice. Yet God wants all to take His free offer of salvation through Jesus Christ.

God graciously transforms lives that were without form and void, lives dark with the disease of sin and dead to God’s ways, sinking under the abysmal waters of His wrath. This powerful God, who once transformed the empty vastness of space with just a word, is so great in His mercy that, in spite of our wilful ignorance, He sees us in our darkness and cries out, “Let the light of the glorious gospel shine in their hearts!” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Image123:
Lord have mercy, see as these 'full' people just swarmed my brother like flies. Unsettled people lacking basic peace that comes from the Prince of peace. I dare you all to ask just one question in a day if you're not a bunch of confused, fearful, depraved, hell-bound mortals.

Chrisbenogor:
I looked around at the high tech equipment in the theatre, they wouldn't be there if anyone on this planet believed a God would fix me.

Yehmey:
Let me share an experience with you,there was a time that I was heartbroken by someone, I really loved him and I wept almost everyday after the breakup. It even got to the extent that while taking my bath in the toilet and I recall anything about him I would burst into tears. Right there in the toilet I knelt down and prayed to God asking for forgiveness, I confessed all my sins and he forgave me. That was the beginning of a new day for me, from that day, the Lord has been my friend, my father, my love, my advicer, my all. You might not understand what I went through cos I am a very emotional person, it was like I was brought out from a fake love to a REAL LOVE.
Please, dont give up on God, dont loose your faith. Having God is the best thing that can ever happen to anyone. God is LOVE.

bsanya:
Bindex, you used to be a Muslim, I think? You can't possibly imagine religious experience is interchangeable,can you? You can't think a Christian losing his faith is the same as a Muslim losing his faith in Allah, or a Hindu losing his fath in Buddhism? If I were to say, "I'm losing my faith', and a Tibetan monk were to state the same, do you think we would be saying the same thing? That we have travelled the same religious path and are coming from the same place? You can't possibly think that. You can register what the poster is saying,but you can't understand his religious experience, the futility and unhappiness he feels in spiritual terms, because you didn't travel the same religious path he did. Just as I can't fully grasp why you lost your faith in Allah, because I'm not Muslim and can't pretend to know what you went through, though I can sympathise and truly do. I'm Christian. He's Christian. I understand what he's saying. I've[i] been[/i] him.

I know it's maddening, but some things are spiritually discerned and you simply won't get it until you experience the same. Your objection to God and spirituality being an individual (personal) experience is meaningless. God deals with humanity on an individual basis because,because all of humanity isn't a single organism with a single brain and consciousness.We're complex individuals,each with a heart and brain and life and choices,navigating complex physical, mental and spiritual terrain. How else can God with us but as individuals? That aspect of things may not meet with your approval but then, it doesn't have to. You dismiss personal experience as if life and everything in it is experienced any other way.

We have choices, as individuals. I choose to believe. You choose not to. You exercise your individual right to not believe,then turn around to complain others who exercise that same right and believe,have only individual spiritual experiences to furnish.Come now.

banom:
All i can say is this,
1, Religion is mans creation and divinity claim,
2, If God exists, we wouldn't need extensive arguement, logic and research to find out,
3, Morality,religions, are what people use to lord and manage others,( power play)
4, If God exists, he hasnt in any general way revealed himself to every man, ( this is important if he needs all men to believe in him)
5, Religion caused more harm,death,conflict war,divisions than it united.
6, Most people believe in religion out of ,fear,need and general inseurity,
7, The concept of God is personal, selfish and demographical.
8, Possibly, God can exist in supernatural but natural human cannot comprehend him,just like artificals i.e car,can not comprehend human ( if so, then any religious claim of the concept of God is fals)

OLAADEGBU:
In as much that I do not have time for your unreasonable babblings, I just want to point out that because your limited human reasoning cannot fathom the Creator God does not give you the excuse to condemn what you don't know.  The fact that your finite mind that is only limited to your five senses cannot understand the spiritual dimension does not mean that you cannot humble yourself to learn from the contact point between the finite man and the infinite eternal uncreated Creator which is the Bible.

[b]I do concede, of course, that there are things about the Earth and about the Universe that we can’t explain. But I don’t think these unexplained phenomena are sufficient to give rise to an inference of supernatural causation. Just 1000 years ago, we couldn’t explain lightning, earth quakes or why maggots seemed to form spontaneously on rotting meat, or why the other planets seemed to zigzag across the sky, or why human beings have a coccyx, or why the rainbow appears in the sky or countless other everyday phenomena. And 1000 years ago, people ascribed those events to God or to their various Gods.

Since then, however, we’ve developed very good and empirical explanations for these things and by extension I’m not ready to go with a “god of the gaps” for the remaining things we don’t understand today. I don’t see anything conceptually that requires a god for explanation.

The bottom line is that this simply does not look like the kind of world, in the kind of universe, which was created and is watched over by an all-loving God for the benefit of his special creation. I thus conclude that the third line of objections to my general case for atheism does not warrant belief in God as an explanation for the existence of this universe. [/b]

The creation we see around us is sufficient for me to scientifically defend the existence of God but to prove it would have to be by faith in the undiluted, inerrant and inspired word of God. This can only be possible when you humble yourself and climb down from your high seat of pride and rebellion and diligently seek for the truth, it is only after this will God open the eyes of your heart to see, hear and comprehend what you have been blinded from since all these years.

OLAADEGBU:
You do not have any proof of the existence of God because you are looking for proofs in all the wrong directions.  You cannot expect to use empirical methods to prove the existence of a personal God.  How can you scientically prove to me that you passionately kissed your man?  This is a personal experience that can only be proved by personal intimate relationship which has only been experienced by you.  So to prove the existence of the Creator God you have to experience Him personally, as this is by faith in His written word (Bible) which is His specific revelation and through the general revelation of His creation as I mentioned earlier.  You cannot know Him through your five or more senses that is only useful to discern natural things (His Creations) but you can ask Him for faith which you will get when you read His word and He will open the eyes of your heart to see the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.  Faith comes by the continuous hearing of the word of God.

huxley2:
How do they know him? Have they met God, spoken audibly with him, felt him, touched him, smelt him, tasted him?

Do they know him in the same sense that a madman "knows" his "demons"?

duduspace:
Can yu please expatiate further? To the pure, is murder also pure?

ttalks:
Dragons; a lot of people have believed to be mythical creatures.
Dinosaurs; a lot of people have believed to have existed before man.

The truth is they existed. What were known as dragons were actually part of the Dinosaur family. Only forgeries through time have made dragons to look and sound like most of them are in stories and legends.
But most of the features they possessed in myths and legends actually were true.

The bible makes it clear that dinosaurs/dragons existed and they existed in the same period as man.

Gen 1:20-21
(20)  And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
(21)  And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

[b]The great whales referred to in verse 21 above was in reference to a dragon,sea monster,serpent,or whale.[/b]This is gotten from the Hebrew and greek representations of that portion of the bible(tanniyn,tanniym).

Mad_Max:
You do yourself a great disservice.
You're designed to seek God and know him for yourself,[/i]personally,intimately,like you know your family and closest friends. God is not some unknowable abstracism, or some harp-strumming ball of gas;[b] He is a real person who talks and feels and loves and hates, and is powerful. [/b]He is a mystery in the sense that we don't have the equipment to fully comprehend him,but he is fully accessible to you and loves you and wants your love and companionship as only such a being can- profoundly.

It's very very clear you don't know God personally for yourself, only through others;perhaps through what your pastor preaches [i]alone. If you had personal knowledge of him, while you may have crises and many,many questions, you will never question his existence. It would be as absurd as questioning the existence of one's mother after years of knowing her and blossoming under her love. If you had only heard of a 'mother' and other people's experiences of one, but did not know one personally,only then might you question if such a thing exists.

God is right there, with you, all times. It is pride and self-sufficient arrogance and a tragic superiority that keeps most of us from reaching out to him when we so easily can. Try to wean yourself off dependence  on other people's experiences of God and seek to know him intimately for yourself. Your knowledge of God must not,not,not,not,be purely academic. It simply mustn't. It would be like listening to what other others say and researching expert opinion and current studies on (pardon me) your mother,retreating behind human thought on the subject when she is right there.

If you seek him you will find him. It's impossible not to. You've probably been indoctrinated and spoon-fed religion and you're now feeling the hollowness and futility that comes from religious rituals while not knowing God personally. Religious rituals and practices, while they have a place, are not a substitute for God. You're supposed to find and know God first, or let Him find you; what you do after that in the name of service and worship will proceed naturally,happily and willingly from your heart. It won't be empty,monotonous, hollow 'duty'.

Many Christians go through what you're going through at one time or the other. I'm sorry you are and wish you didn't have to, but there it is. It's important you know what you believe, and that you experience God for yourself,and then nothing can take Him away from you,ever. Hold on and don't give up.

duduspace:
what about those killed by christians in the past also? and what about the Jim Jones, David Koresh and Rev. King types? As long as you peeps continue to perpetuate your religious lies, we will always have such people lurking in the background even if most in the mainstream are peaceful.
The danger to us aside, a lie is still a lie no matter how you dress it up.

davidylan:
the only difference here is your own shoddy or crass lack of understanding. James (like other passages) says the onus is on us to accept the sacrifice of the cross, repent of our sins and approach God in humble worship. John 6 however lets us know that it is NOT by ourselves that we are accepted of Him, it is Christ who accepts us to Himself AFTER we have willingly submitted ourselves to Him.

That nonsense is not supported anywhere in the bible . . . perhaps you can show us where you found it.

davidylan:
Because . . . silly . . . you cant take a verse in isolation and start building a theology on it. But that is of course the modus operandi of those who read the bible TO FIND FAULTS rather than understand it. you cant read John 6:44 and throw James 4:8 into the dustbin because it doesnt agree with your pre-concieved bias.

I repeat James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

the "drawing nigh" here is of your own free will . . . no one will forcefully draw you. the bible doesnt need to put "freewill" in block letters before you understand what it means.

h i thought we were only discussing John 6:44 . . . where did Romans come from? Thou hypocrite, it is OK [/b]for you to orush to use other verses to explain your non-point . . . but it is [b]NOT OK for me to quote James 4 to buttress John 6?

At the verses you again misquote, mangle and dishonestly twist out of context . . . the bible is not saying that God specifically hand-picked only a certain people to be saved and condemned the rest to hell. It simply states that God . . . being omnipresent (knowing the end from the begining) already knows those who would bother to draw themselves to Him.

Again we have a whole laundry list of verses that are CERTAINLY NOT John 6:44 . . . what was that he was bleating about talking only about John 6:44 again? hypocrites

John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

James 4 vs 8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Joh 6:65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is[b] granted him by the Father[/b]."

davidylan:
Nowhere in image123's post does he literarily imply that you have to lift your physical body to God. YOU CANT. What John 6:44 and James 4:8-10 are saying is not to physically lift your hands but to approach God in prayer and genuine repentance. Hyperbole is lost on the ignorant.