₦airaland Forum

bloodofthelamb:
Our ability to chat together despite we being in different location is as a result of God. God put this things in place longer, man(science) only discovered how it works.

Even so, there is so many things that God has set up from the beginning yet to be discovered by men.

Our ability to chat in different locations is as a result of Aliens. Aliens put things in order, science only discovered how it works. There are many things set up by aliens yet to be discovered by men.

enilove:
You wouldn't have been able to communicate with me , even with the aid of science if there is no breathe of life in you , which science can never discover or produced.

Another reason you can interact with me is the presence of radio active wave which science did not create .

I believe the Bible for many reasons and one of which is this :

Exodus 14:15-18,21-22 KJV
And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward: [16] But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. [17] And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them: and I will get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. [18] And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord , when I have gotten me honour upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen. [21] And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land , and the waters were divided. [22] And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground : and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

THE EGYPTIANS ARE AWARE OF THE OCCURRENCE OF THIS EVENT AS WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE AND HAVE NEVER DENIED IT.

WHO COULD DIVIDE A SEA , IF NOT ITS CREATOR . IT IS NOT IN HISTORY THAT THIS KIND DOES HAPPENS AT TIME , WHICH WOULD HAVE MADE ONE TO BELIEVE IT WAS A COINCIDENCE .

What about the BLOOD which science cannot produce . If there is shortage of blood in a man's body , unless a matching blood is transfused into that body , there is no other remedy than death. Why can't science find solution to this critical issue of life?

What is this nonsense. Where you there when these events happened? The Egyptians have NO record of the Isrealiets ever enslaved in Egypt. They don't have the records anywhere. If you have any Egyptian record stating that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt at anytime bring it forward. Historically the biblical story about Egypt remains a myth.

No sea was divided, because the exodus is non historical. It remains so a Hebrew mythology that has NO evidence to support it.

I asked you to tell me how you know that the Bible is not the words of men. When did any God appear to you and told you that the Bible is his word? If you were born in a society that accepts Islam will you not be telling us that the Koran is the word of Allah? Keep living inside your bubble.

enilove:
How will science tell you conclusively the years man have been existing on earth.

Don't you realise that science is a trial and error . Science is nothing but researches to discover what is in existence.

Was the earth created by science that I should rely on its findings instead of God's words ?

Your ability to interact with me on this platform despite the fact that we live in 2 different continents is as a result of science. Science works, your religion which is nothing but superstition doesn't.
So when where and how did any God told you that the Bible is his word? When did any God appear to you and personally told you that? Men wrote down stories and told you that these stories are words of God and you believed without ANY evidence. Which evidence was provided to you before you believed that the Bible is the word of God? Why not the Koran or the Hindu Verdes? After all billions of people believe that the Koran and Hindu verdes are the words of God as well.

enilove:
Sir , that is my belief also.

Stop telling us what you believe. Just show us conclusive and scientific evidence that supports your position. Beliefs are just what they are, beliefs, they have nothing at all to do with reality.

tintingz:
Lol, they will start telling irrelevant stories and direct you to some remote area.

I've challenged my friends that believe in voodoo to bring forward anyone for testing, till date they can't present single person, infact the confidence I've have on my position they started claiming I also have juju.

I've come to conclusion that "fear" makes people easily believe in things, gullible.

Things that are real don't dwell on mysticism.
An automobile car engine is real, a Jet engine is also real, an assult rifle is real, surgical methods are real, bullet proof vest are real, MRAP vehicles that withstand mines are real, drugs and vaccines that treat diseases sre real. Anybody can see these things and learn about them because they are real and they work. Juju and vodoo aren't real that's why they rely on silly tales of mysticism. Evidence points to the truth and not the other way round. Let nobody be deceived.

tintingz:
The way superstitous people talk about voodoo, you will think it's kind of useful to the society or make the society develop.

I tire. Ask them for evidence and they'll start blabbing.

Dantedasz:
This guy is one of the most dangerously fraudulent pastors in this country.
Just see his spellbinding weapons that he uses on his congregation. Carefully brain washing them that the SEED solves their problems.
He cunningly calls their salvation a SEED.
How does a student get 500k?
This was that pastor that was banging one of his church workers,that promised a robust response that never came.
Listening to this guy I just can't comprehend how his congregation sits there and listens to his spellbinding and then get out of their seats and the stupidly donate their money to him to sponsor his rock star lifestyle...
Sickening...

COZA pastor is a dangerous pulpit bandit.

HardMirror:
lolz

He never came with the proof.

hopefulLandlord:
Chuphy

why are you quoting yourself?

castro316:
All of you arguing whether God exists or not. Let me tell you FYI that He exists. Just know this. I am not saying since he exist you must follow me and worship him. I am satisfied with my belief and you can all feel free not to believe.

You believe God exists abi? Thought you knew and had proof.

hopefulLandlord:
Dalaman, is it your money? I was there at the service. I sowed my school fees combined with my life savings. Now I'm reaping the benefits as my parents disowned me, I'm homeless and penniless. Glory be to the Jewish god and this pastor he sent to ruin my life

. One of the many wonders of Yahweh.

Chiedu4Trump:
I beg tell me who be genuine preacher.

I tire oo.

COZA Pastor telling students to sow seeds of 500k.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7JA4SX-VuI

The guy is his elder brother and NOT his twin. Pogba has two elder brothers that look exactly like him.

Obainoneandonly:
off to work.will continue this conversation in the evening....please endeavor to b here, because I will b coming with hard proof

Obainoneandonly:
beer parlour gossip u say,but they are real...I know people like you will be very difficult to convince,even if d evidences are so glaring to your face

Where is the egg that explodes, where? Stop telling lies and making a FOOL of yourself? Where is the egg and why aren't we using it to conquer people?

Obainoneandonly:
u make me laugh,I know u know what am talking, as a Yoruba man dat you are.. the signs are everywhere for you to see...voodoo wrks perfectly well,and its tested nd comfirmed.....deny it all you want,but the issue still stands

Tested and confirmed where, when and how? Bullet proof vest has been confirmed, cars have been confirmed, fighter jets and commercial airplanes have been confirmed, drugs and guns have been confirmed, fractional distillation has been confirmed, oxygen mask have been confirmed. What part of Juju has been confirmed and for what purpose?

omohayek:
Great post, OP. It's unfortunate that it will neither be read by those in power who can act on it, nor the Nairaland masses most in need of being enlightened by it.

Seriously and it's sad.

Martinez19:
Very empty. I just stopped replying him.

Seriously.

vaxx:
it is a not a challenge to religious folks.

I fail to see how. The opinions and submissions of the people you stated are empty in my opinion.

Fear is what fuels all religions.

vaxx:
Atheists are found of “Epicurus’ riddle”, that is a version of the logical problem of evil, one that no philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of religion thinks is sound. Don’t believe me? Below are a few quotes on the logical problem of evil I compiled from various philosophers who specialize in the philosophy of religion:

“Perhaps the logical problem of evil does not pose such a great challenge to theism. To deal with it, it would suffice to show that an all-powerful, all-knowing and maximally good god might allow some evil for the sake of a greater good.” (Stephen Law, “The evil-god Challenge”, 2010)

“Logical arguments from evil are a dying (dead?) breed. Even an omnipotent and omniscient being might be forced to allow evil for the sake of obtaining some important good. Our knowledge of goods and evils and the logical relations they bear to each other is much too limited to prove that this could not be the case.” (Paul Draper, “The Skeptical Theist”, 176–177, 1996)

“First, it [the problem of evil] can be formulated as a purely deductive argument that attempts to show that there are certain facts about evil in the world that are logically incompatible with the existence of God, and one especially ambitious form of this sort of argument attempts to establish the very strong claim that it is logically impossible for it to be the case both that there is any evil at all, and that God exists (…) It seems very doubtful, however, that the argument is sound. The reason is that the claim that a morally perfect being would want to prevent all evils is not unproblematic.” (Michael Tooley, “Knowledge of God”, 100–101, 2008)

““It used to be held that evil was incompatible with the existence of God: that no possible world contained both God and evil. So far as I am able to tell, this thesis is no longer defended.”

(Peter Van Inwagen, “Philosophical Perspective 5”, 1991)

“It is now acknowledged on (almost) all sides that the logical argument [from evil] is bankrupt.”

(William Alston, “Philosophical Perspective 5”, 1991)



Extract from my library.........

And the sense you've made here is?

Nigerians and fake news, so Sheraton is the new national assembly abi?

tintingz:
Debates about God/s, myths, superstitions etc.

E.g those who believe juju work should come forward for open debates and demonstrate thier juju, it will also be examine.

If this persist, enlightenment will come to Africa.

Roger!

tintingz:
I support the idea of critical thinking subjects in schools, schools should start engaging in philosophical debates.

I rarely see schools organizing debates base on beliefs, no TV programs organize debates base on beliefs.

What type of debates on beliefs?

50 most powerful pulpit bandits.

tintingz:
Religions are not about finding truth—they are about defending lies.

This got me.

It got me too.

^^

Fact!

"All religions insist they have found the truth, despite the fact there are hundreds of religions and thousands of denominations preaching contradictory beliefs. This made me wonder, if religions were REALLY concerned about finding the truth, how would we expect them to behave?

I wouldn’t expect to see religious or inter-denominational wars, such as we have seen between Shia and Sunni Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and Hindus and others. Obviously, you don’t discover who has the truth by killing those who have different opinions.

Instead, I would expect to see multi-faith working groups in centers of higher learning all over the world, working round the clock, sifting evidence, setting up archaeological expeditions and carrying out research. I would expect these centers of excellence to have ruled out most religions and denominations by now, and be working hard to pare down the remaining short-list of religions.

Finally, I would not expect religions to cling to dogma that cannot be changed; rather I would expect religions readily to change their beliefs as new evidence is uncovered.

But in the real world, we do see killing, we do see rigid dogma, and we see apologists turning intellectual somersaults to “explain” contradictions and apparent absurdities. But we do not see serious attempts to rule out false religions by mutual consent. Why not?

Because religions are NOT about truth. Truth is not in the least relevant to religions. That is why religions rely on faith and eschew evidence; that is why they rely on the indoctrination of children and not on open-minded inquiry.

Religions are not about finding truth—they are about defending lies".

- Bill Flavel

mmsen:
All great points but so long as the state run schools are poorly funded and run the private schools as operated by churches are religious nutcases will continue to miseducate.

The annoying part is that Nigeria had one very good, secular school in The Mayflower but ever since Tai Solarin died it has been allowed to go way the way of the country at large with an increased emphasis on superstition and less on reason and self-sufficiency.

Tai Solarin had a great vision but unfortunately there was nobody to continue his plans.

By Leo Igwe

A lot has been said and written about Africa and the continent’s inextricable bind to superstitions. Anthropologists have documented cases of unyielding magical manifestations and interpretations of reality. They have extensively explained the potent role of religion and the occult in forging ancient and modern Africa. This presentation uses the concept of stupidity to situate the persistence of superstitious and paranormal beliefs in contemporary Africa.

In an article in the September 12, 2017, edition of the Time magazine, Steven Nadler defines stupidity as a kind of intellectual stubbornness. He observed that: “A stupid person has access to all the information necessary to make an appropriate judgment, to come up with a set of reasonable and justified beliefs and yet fails to do so. The evidence is staring them right in the face, but it makes no difference whatsoever. They believe what they want to believe”. So they are stupid who have or can obtain the required knowledge but do not allow the information to influence their judgments, beliefs and positions. It is problematic to assume that all Africans have access to all the necessary information that they need to make appropriate judgments.



However, for the sake of argument in this piece, let us take this assumption as a given. Across Africa, intellectual stubbornness is pervasive as evident in the wide range of irrational beliefs that ferociously rage on the continent. For instance, African people have access to biological knowledge and other scientific information about human and animal reproductions. The evidence is there that human beings cannot turn into goats, yams or cats. Still, Africans believe that birds can turn into human beings. This belief applies despite science education constituting part of the African school program. Biology is taught in African schools and children are exposed very early to the basics of life sciences. Unfortunately, paranormal beliefs have refused to disappear. Instead, they are gaining social visibility.
Occult experts of both traditional and modern extractions openly and publicly propagate these ideas; they robustly defend various misconceptions as constitutive of African ‘science’, African Christianity or African Islam. Magical stories dominate the African film industry popularly known as the Nollywood. Narratives of transcendental augmentation of the mundane, and of the material, tales of humans turning into animals, and insects and then performing supposedly extraordinary feats that defy common sense are perceived as demonstrations of occult power and magic, that is beyond the scope of ‘Western’ science and logic.

African superstitions manifest in various forms, as absurd claims and ridiculous behaviours. Whether as religions, cultures or traditions, strands of cognitive obstinacy make Africans a laughing stock, objects of scorn and ridicule globally. Take, for instance, some years ago, members of a vigilante group in Ilorin in Southern Nigeria ‘arrested’ a goat. They believed that a car thief turned into an animal to evade arrest. They took the goat to a police station. And the police ‘detained’ the goat and later paraded the animal as a suspect before journalists. In addition, there have been reports of the magical disappearance of male private organs, warnings about killer cell phone numbers and claims of people who died and were later found to be alive and residing somewhere in the country. There have also been reports of African Christian worshippers eating grass at the instance of their pastors. An African pastor sprayed insecticide on the church members during deliverance. Another one forged a video where he walked on air. One man of God also claimed that he had God’s direct telephone line that he used to communicate with him.

Muslims from impoverished African nations are seen every year travelling to Mecca to throw stones at the devil. African Christians go to Jerusalem and Rome to reenact similar Judeo-Christian myths and misconceptions. They use their savings or state subsidies to fund these ritual activities despite the evidence that these religious tours contribute to growing the economies of the host countries not those of the African visitors. In fact, many Africans have lost their lives while performing these religious activities especially the Hajj. Meanwhile, the evidence of an afterlife, a divine post-mortem compensation for such a loss is simply not there. In addition, many Africans regularly convene, sometimes during working hours, in churches, on holy mountains, or at makeshift shelters to utter both meaningful and meaningless syllables claiming to be effectively communicating with a God or with the spirits. The list is endless.

Entertaining superstitious beliefs does not only border on the ridiculous but also on the horrific. The display of magic powers has led to the death and injuries of many local medicine practitioners as well as their clients in the region. Recently a local Nigerian healer died while testing his “bulletproof charm”. And in a related incident, a local medicine man in Ghana luckily escaped death in the course of a similar experiment. Locals in some parts of Nigeria -the Igbos- call this charm, O dighi eshi, which roughly translates: ‘It is of no effect’. Others -the Yorubas- called it Ayeta. The belief is that a gunshot is of no effect on a person bearing the charm. A bullet cannot pierce the body of the person. The medicine supposedly neutralises any gunshots including rocket-propelled grenade and bomb attacks. African people use such anti-bullet charms to rob and fight. They apply them when they encounter armed robbers or when they go hunting. Even the present day African soldiers fighting Boko Haram militants with sophisticated modern weaponry and wearing the ‘modern’ bulletproof vests still carry these anti-bullet charms.

Furthermore, people who believe that their fortune can be magically manipulated for good or ill accuse elderly women and children of witchcraft and subsequently attack or kill them. The belief is that witches fly out at night to attend an occult meeting where they conspire to kill or harm. Witches perform the flights using witch planes or winnowing baskets. Africans who are living with albinism or those with hunchback have been routinely targeted, attacked and murdered for ritual purposes. Ritualists believe that the body parts can bring good fortune. Incidentally, religious and traditional establishments continue to directly or indirectly valorise the idea that there is some potency in ritual sacrifice of animals or of human beings. Violence has been unleashed on those suspected of using magic to steal men’s penis or to eat up people’s talents or take away their stars.

When challenged or confronted with the evidence, peddlers of superstition usually try to defend themselves insisting on the credibility of their positions. They oppose, dispute and dismiss the facts. For instance, apologists of African superstitions argue that the anti-bullet charms which the Nigerian and Ghanaian healers used in this case were fake; that the healers did not apply the ‘original’, genuine African charms or that the healers violated some rules guiding this occult process. Meanwhile, they won’t present any effective bulletproof charm to demonstrate their case. Sometimes, superstitious folks point to witch confessions or hearsays, to anecdotes or some fringe declarations by ritualists, godmen and women as the evidence of occult powers. They allude to the performance of one powerful medicine man that died some years ago. Or if they live in eastern Nigeria, they would say that the magical feat happened in the west. If they reside in the south of Ghana, they would state that the powerful could be obtained in the North.

In addition, superstitionists often react violently to attempts to expose the absurdities in their propositions. They feel very insecure hence use force, threat and intimidation as a form of argument, to silence those who question their intellectual stubbornness, or try to make them believe otherwise.

To weaken the hold of irrational beliefs in the minds of Africans, the educational system must be totally overhauled. At the moment, the school system in the region is heavily faith and dogma based and does not have adequate provision for the inculcation of required thinking skills and competencies. African schools must undergo a curricular and pedagogical rejigging with emphasis on critical inquiry and examination of claims, norms and values. Quite often the awful state of education in Africa has been attributed to colonialism and the inadequate school system that the colonial authorities left behind. Africans need to realise that there is an expiry date for blaming the ills and wrongs in Africa on its colonial past and that the expiry date had passed. So Africans need to take their educational destiny in their hands and take all necessary measures to pull themselves up by their own booth’s strap.

To this end, critical thinking should be introduced as a subject in schools, colleges and universities. Such an initiative will encourage pupils and students to exercise their curiosity and apply their critical intelligence in all areas of human endeavour — in politics, religion, economics, and science. African youths and students should be able to critically examine what their teachers, parents, pastors and prophets say. With more critical thinking, African church goers will understand that it is goats, and cows not human beings that eat grass; that church leaders who order their members to eat grass or to drink Dettol or pay tithe should be challenged. They should not be blindly obeyed. Critical reasoning will make Africans understand that healers who market or test anti-bullet charms at the end of the day achieve one thing: they kill or injure themselves or others. In addition, those who challenge and debunk superstitious claims including those who criticise religious teachings should be protected. Governments should guarantee their safety. Those who criticise religions and superstitions should be honoured, not banished, exiled or imprisoned. Their Promethean courage should be celebrated. Situations such as those in Nigeria, India, Tunisia and Bangladesh, where secularists and debunkers of superstitious beliefs are attacked and killed should not be tolerated. It is by questioning beliefs that false and mistaken notions can be exposed, and the African society can be enlightened. It is by fostering the virtues of doubt and disbelief that African stupidity can be fixed.