budaatum: The fact I need to believe already invalidates it as far as I'm concerned.
It's like claiming the Spaghetti Monster is real because I believe it exists. And my response will be, in my stupid head and in the heads of the brainless people I am able to convince it exists in their heads too. And if I can do that, I'd rather convince people to sell me a spanking brand new red Ferrari for the imaginary million pounds in my imaginary bank account or they should just be my slaves.
Some read Giordano Bruno for understanding, Deep, while some read it and believe.
Well for me, the existence of the soul is as obvious as the existence of air. The body is a cloak and i feel sensitive people should actually feel its weight clustered around their intangible self.
Mentioning FSM is always a sign to me that someone doesnt take a discussion seriously and only intends to mock the issues at play.
IjeBos: It was universally quoted that way because leaving out the rest of the sentence didn't matter. Everyone understood it to be a white nationalist protest. And those protesting were protesting in support of White Nationalism.
Let's rephrase what he was saying. "There were very fine people on both sides, [even on the side of those who showed up to protest in support of "White Nationalism]. I'm not just talking about the KKK and Neo Nazis."
Does that give his statement more context? No, again everyone understood it was a White Nationalist protest. It was all over the national media that it was a White Nationalist rally and counter demonstrators organized because of it. Everyone knew it may be violent and that is was a White Nationalist rally, so the city tried to prevent the rally from even happening. But a federal judge blocked the city from doing so and let it go on on First Amendment grounds.
The idea that "good people" just moseyed along to this rally is fantasy. Whomever was there, knew they were at a White Supremacy rally. So, it wasn't matter of a rally you heard about happening in the town square and you wanted to check it out. Everyone in that city knew, everyone in the counrty knew it was a White Nationalist thing. Trump knew it was a white nationalist rally. Does that give more context to Trump's remarks and why what was left out didn't matter?
Apologies, the more I think about the more I remember it.
I concur. I did feel blindsided though, by not seeing or hearing of the full quote for a long time.
You see, I think deliberately cutting that sentence short was wrong especially because it gives his base ammo to cite it as an instance for him being deliberately sabotaged.
You need have no doubt - I am clear in my mind that the fellow is a white supremacist racist and I dont agree with his statement, shortened or not.
IjeBos: Deepsight, you're at a rally and it's filled with these people. Are you staying?
Not for a nano second.
And why would any US President instead of roundly condemning the rally, equivocate and rely on false equivalencies? Is the side fighting White Supremacy equal to the side fighting for White Supremacy?
It was a dog whistle plain and simple. Just like his "stand back and stand by" comment to the Proud Boys. Just like pardoning the Jan 6ers.
I wholly concur.
Let me repeat yet again for overwhelming emphasis that I dont agree with what Trump said. I just note that virtually every report on it deliberately cut his sentence short.
I am sure my posts here are clear enough on what I think of the man - and his racism, so please do not think that in anyway I see eye to eye with him on the matter.
IjeBos: Were there other issues in play with Hitler?
This was what the stated goal of the Unite the Right Rally by the organizer I understand what you are saying. I am saying even if he did leave out the KKK and White Nationalists there were not fine people on both sides. Because the intent of the rally was to foster white nationalist ideology and those who chose to show up understood what they were there for.
I concur. Well said.
Let me just emphasize yet again that I dont agree that there were fine people on both sides.
I only note that that statement made by Trump was almost universally quoted without completing his sentence.
SpyMaster1: 😂😂😂 The level of self-delusion is actually impressive. You just spent several posts repeatedly calling non-believers "enemies of God" and "God haters", then when called out, you run to two random links and say “See? I didn’t call this person that!” Bro, you literally called atheists “enemies of God” and “anti-God people” in this very thread multiple times. You did it again in your last post. Stop gaslighting.
You proudly divide the world into only two groups: “God lovers” and “God haters/enemies of God”. That’s not “speaking Truth”. That’s tribalism and intellectual laziness. It allows you to dismiss anyone who disagrees with you without engaging their actual points. And now you’re saying “let’s wait and see who dies smiling and who laments on their deathbed.” This is exactly the fear-mongering and emotional blackmail I was talking about.
As Epicurus wisely said: "Death is nothing to us, since when we exist, death has not come, and when death has come, we no longer exist."
Michel de Montaigne added: "The ceaseless labour of your life is to build the house of death."
And Seneca put it bluntly: "We do not die because we are ill; we die because we are born."
Death comes for everyone believer and non-believer alike. Using it to gloat and threaten “just wait till your deathbed” doesn’t make you wise or truthful. It makes you petty and cruel.
You claim you’re “only here for Truth”, yet you reduce complex discussions about suffering, old age, and the meaning of life into “God lovers vs God haters”. That’s not seeking Truth. That’s hiding behind simplistic labels because you can’t handle honest disagreement.
The truth is simple: people die scared or peaceful regardless of their beliefs. Your need to turn every death into a victory lap for your side says more about your insecurity than about any cosmic truth.
Keep waiting for that deathbed “gotcha” moment. The rest of us will continue living without your constant fear and division.
If you were familiar with that poster you would understand that everything you have written is far above his head.
NerdCat: This is a rather unnecessary wild goose chase you've subjected yourself to - chasing a straw man of your own frantic assembly while the actual argument stands untouched in the corner, waiting. I never summarised aging as "the whole essence of existence," and I'd invite you to locate the sentence where I did, but I suspect the search would be both brief and frustrating. I don't even understand the interpretive gymnastics required to read "inevitable suffering and systemic collapse" as a dismissal of every positive biological process simultaneously. Please reel it in, and actually engage with the proposition: mandatory gratitude is philosophically untenable when suffering is structurally guaranteed. And even if we generously credit your god with the beauty of nature and the gift of life, we must still be forced to reckon with cancer, neurodegeneration, grief, viruses, and the whole bag of nasties. It always amuses me how Christians insist on trying to audit these facts selectively.
seunmsg: The court can give judgement and give details of the judgement at a later day. They have done this severally in the past. Considering INEC's timetable, the SC should give their judgement immediately.
Kukutente23: Of course the soul is bound to earth for a while but it is not held captive by the body at any time. If the soul is free, then the body is itself free since a bound body can't carry a free soul. Thus I find your initial premise totally wrong
I hear you. And I repeat that it resonates with me.
However, just as a thought experiment, let us ask ourselves these questions. Do we really know the fate of this soul post death, or what we have contrived is simply designed to keep our sanity in what is clearly a situation where no one knows the truth?
And leading from that question, if we dont know what really awaits our consciousness post death, can we write off the fringe notions that we are being groomed for some purpose altogether different from anything we have ever or can ever imagine?
For me, humility in light of how small we are in the scheme of things means that we have to admit that we just dont know and cant shut down various possibilities.
What the creator intended is a far cry from how man has turn out.
I find it very tiresome to blame the created being all the time when the creator clearly holds the driving wheel in the scheme of things.
Ijebosc: Would there be some fine people in a crowd of people protesting the removal of a Hitler statute?
When you decide to leave your house and protest the removal of a statute of a traitor who fought and killed Americans in defense of slavery, standing shoulder to shoulder with the KKK and Neo Nazis, ignorance can no longer be a defense.
If you look around and see there are people in white hoods on your side, you better figure out what side you are actually on.
Very well said.
Just to be clear, I dont subscribe to the view that there were fine people on both sides. I only note that Trump was widely quoted out of full context deliberately. Perhaps he said what he said in a bid to appease both sides, but I certainly do not personally agree with it.
Let me add, on an academic note that there is the argument that there were other issues at play in the American Civil War beyond slavery alone, even if that was clearly the major and overriding difference.
Kukutente23: Missed it by a mile. The soul was never in prison.
Everything that's experienced on earth is experienced by the body. The effect on the soul or spirit is resultant but indirect. For example, many have while being in prison had reason to become religious converts.
Being in prison does not stop a man from dreaming and seeing his dead relations or even having psychologically intimate sex with his wife. The prison is only able to capture the body not the mind. The Bible says if you faint in the days of adversity, then your strength is weak. That strength refers to the soul of man not his physical ability since that will must times be limited in adversity.
Thus, to call the earth a prison for humans will imply that the soul is bound to earth and the experience it suffers is only within the reason of what its body experiences on earth. That can't be further from the reality.
I find this interesting and it does in fact resonate with me. Nonetheless we cannot say that man is not bound to the Earth for a time. Even where we can agree that the soul may straddle different realms, its experience is also attached to the Earth and life on Earth for a time.
I dont think it is meaningful to discuss the body sans the soul by the way, otherwise you would be discussing a corpse.
Kukutente23: The soul is not bound to earth the way our body is The soul transcends different realms at intervals So to claim that the soul is a slave in a earthly prison is a direct affirmation of delusion
Its one thing to say that the soul straddles different realms - which I would agree with - and quite another to say that the soul does not dwell on Earth? Let me understand your position properly.
Furthermore, please note that when we speak of the Earthman, we speak of the totality of his being, body, soul, mind, spirit as dwelling on Earth for a given time.
Now surely an analogy suffices. Even if the government sends you to jail, someone can come and say that your spirit is in your house with your family while your body is in the jail. This would not mean that you are not in jail would it?
Jangbajantis: Iran didn’t need to start anything. Creating a credible nuclear threat is enough to trigger preemptive action. And we all know Israel has always been their target. They want the entire nation of Israel nuked. Over the years, Israel hadn't experienced peace with Hamas, Hezbollah and then Houthi...all Iran terror proxies.
Why can Israel have nukes and Iran cant? What is the logic behind such double standards?
Before you answer, since I know you will say that Iran threatens Israel, I ask you to build into your answer the fact that Israel (and the US) have been a threat to Iran as well for decades. They actually removed a democratic Iranian Govt in the 50s because that govt wanted control of its own oil.
Furthermore, before you answer also build into your answer the fact that Pakistan has nukes - and has been a hotbed of residence and encampment of terrorists. I neednt remind you of where Bin Laden was captured obviously under state protection.
Yet furthermore, before you answer, I would ask that you build into your answer the following facts -
1. The fact that only the USA has ever used an atomic weapon in history
2. The fact that Iran was part of the NNPT and Israel is NOT.
Kukutente23: Unfortunately souls do not inhabit the earth It is the physical body that inhabits the earth Your claim is flawed Your logic is false The physical man is the most idealistically free, who is always expanding the boundaries of his freedom and rejecting any attempt to stifle it. Shake yourself off these delusions
Hang on a second. This is a very interesting proposition. Do I understand you to be saying that only our bodies dwell on Earth but our souls simultaneously dwell elsewhere?
HacheNoire: Professor Wole Soyinka is highly learned and familiar with economics indices to assess and reach judgement.
You do not expect him to address issues when there is none. He is familiar with the great shift His Excellency, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR) is working on and aware about the course where The President is navigating towards.
When you see critics silent, is not that they are scared, bribed or being cowards. It is because they CURRENTLY do not have critical issues to address.
It will be nuisance for The Great Wole Soyinka to start addressing matters like Peter, who has no in-depth knowledge about economics or a sense of feasibility to know where the country is drifting towards.
We revere the great WS but it is madness to claim there are no issues of note on ground. Sheer madness. Please cool down with this your support for the president. You can do it without making insane statements such as the bold.
The truth is simple. WS and BAT are very very close personal friends. It is understandable to some extent if he does not wish to denigrate his friend in public. He likely talks to him privately. Also he has made one or two small criticisms, at least one was about the convoy of Seyi Tinubu, which is a sort of vicarious criticism of the latitude the father has give him.
Small word of advise. If you want people to value what you say when supporting your candidate, try and be balanced. You will actually win more people over that way and people will respect what you say. Dont be like the Trumpists who call Trump's every fart a chess move.
And dont be like WizardofNG who trembles and flees when he hears the name Atiku Bagudu.
NerdCat: There's no singular law or statute. Finito. So come off it already. And I didn't fail to notice that you've just smuggled in a concession by listing fear, admiration, and transactionalism as viable worship foundations, which tells me everything I need to know about your religion: it's no different from a protection racket. And furthermore, the moment worship becomes a purely coercive affair, the term "father" morphs from a benevolent term to become a grotesque euphemism.
@ the bold!
Now, I'm not sure how you missed this, but love was YOUR religion's central sales pitch, not mine. So don't blame me for holding up your text to the light of facts.
Jangbajantis: I've done that already. I criticised America for escalation and the human cost of war (and I mean innocent civilians only).No country is above criticism. Humans make them up and humans are not perfect.
My point is simply that criticism should be balanced. If you can see US errors, you should also be able to see Iran's threats too and the role they played in creating the same crisis.
Kukutente23: Your comment seems to place the aging and dying of mortals as a misnomer which the deity responsible for creation should be vilified for. You did not stop there. You somehow summarised aging as the whole essence of existence and defined it as a terrible physical affliction which supersedes all other natural processes If aging is blamed on God, who do you hang birthing and growing upon? You're simply assuming too much to aging in a bid to disparage the creator
Let me come in here. It is not just aging by itself I referred to in the OP. I referred to the infirmities, indignities and vulnerabilities it is often attended with.
NerdCat: I don't need omnipotence to identify a logical contradiction. Beyond your suspiciously breezy "nope," you've essentially agreed that suffering exists and mercy doesn't explain it. It is what it is.
Allow me to stress-test that thesis with a child's brain tumor, thank you very much. Now, you tell me, whose actions specifically caused that one? Harm and suffering from purely human conduct is one conversation, but metastatic cancer in a seven-year-old is structurally another one entirely. Keep in mind - an omnipotent deity who permits the latter while possessing the power to prevent it is morally indistinguishable from its architect.
TV01: Ultimately, everything will be set right for those that put their trust in Him and His salvational work - even if temporal suffering persists for a time.
TV
Oh like it was eventually set right for Job by ensuring that he had fresh children as though that would wipe away the grief over those who were lost in what was a mischievous and sadistic gambling game between Yahweh and the Devil?
Jangbajantis: Lol! That is very easy. But pretending every move they make is wrong while excusing Iran is the harder bias to ignore. Don't you think?
I dont pretend that. Remember I said that blocking the strait was a good tactical move. If only they thought of that before starting the war, that would have saved alot of lives, resources and grief around the world.
When going to Cambridge to become an Anglican clergyman, he did not "in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in the Bible" The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882.
Anglican clergymen are not Christians?
Let me confess something. There was a post which TV01 made on a thread long ago that I read, which was so balanced and sensible that i really thought here was a sound mind.
I have since been relieved of that delusion. It reaffirmed my longstanding thought that one should not hastily conclude on anyone no matter how much one may agree or disagree with them in the early stages of an interaction. The seeming devil could be an angel and vice versa.
I thought TV01 would be a knowledgeable chap but it turns out he isnt and makes the most elementary gaffes which tell one he knows very little to start with.
But you see, no one knows it all and we learn everyday so I have no issues with that. What I have issues with is stark irrationality.
Ijebosc: It was a rally protesting the removal of a Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee was a traitor to the US who led the South in a Civil War in the US to keep slavery and black people enslaved and killed countless Americans in the process. I have no idea why there is any statute to any traitor to the US esp. a traitor who fought to keep slavery still standing in the US.
Noone there protesting the removal of that statue was a "very fine person".
On the matter of the removal of the statue I agree with you.
I also did not say that I agree that there were very fine persons on both sides.
I am specific that Trump was widely misrepresented because even for me, it took a long time before I saw the longer version in which in the very same breath he said he was not referring to the neo nazis, proud boys or other racists. Every time this was quoted, this was left out and that was not fair because he said it in the very same breath.
This does not mean I agree with there being very fine people on both sides. Even though I can also concede that some of those who defend the history of the Confederate War effort may not be doing so from support of slavery. They may however be either or both ignorant and hypocritical.
budaatum: Thank you for provoking my mind to attempt to say it so well. I shall continue to endeavour to say it better.
Hmm. I sound patronising! I mean my own and not yours I quoted. I can not express my gratitude to you enough for sharpening my iron and provoking my mind to work, even when we disagree.
The Charge The accusation has become liturgy on the left. Trump incites violence. Trump is dangerous. Trump's words are a threat to democracy. Say it enough times in front of enough cameras and it begins to feel like settled fact, the kind of thing serious people simply know to be true. This is being repeated now after the third assassination attempt of Trump happened last night. It is worth examining carefully, and the examination reveals a great deal about why we are in the broken place we inhabit today. A charge repeated is not a charge proven. And when you trace this argument to its specific evidentiary anchors, two dates come up almost every time: Charlottesville in August 2017 and January 6th in 2021. These are the twin pillars of the incitement narrative. Any person committed to the narrative will mention both if asked for examples. Let us examine them honestly. II. Charlottesville and the "Both Sides" Lie The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville has been weaponized so thoroughly that most Americans cannot accurately describe what Trump actually said about it. The media stripped his remarks down to a single phrase and buried everything else. What Trump said in full was this: there were "very fine people on both sides" a reference specifically to those on both sides of the Confederate statue debate, not to the neo-Nazis or the counterprotesters who clashed violently. He said explicitly in the same press conference: "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally." That sentence was omitted from nearly every broadcast. What is also omitted from virtually every discussion is the serious documented evidence that the rally itself was not the organic product of ordinary Trump supporters. The tiki torch marchers appeared, performed for cameras, and vanished. Agitators were identified on both sides with murky financing and murky motivations. The man who drove his car into the crowd, James Alex Fields Jr., was convicted and is in prison for life. Nothing about that event requires Trump's words to explain Fields evil. We now have even more evidence that Fields wouldn't have been there if there wasn't a need to pay for an elaborate staged racist event. III. The Charlottesville Psy Op: The SPLC's Indictment The Charlottesville narrative has been the left's most potent weapon for nearly nine years. It was cited as the reason Joe Biden entered the 2020 presidential race. It was used to brand Trump as the chief enabler of white supremacy in America. It was repeated in every impeachment argument, every campaign advertisement, and every newsroom style guide that quietly encoded "very fine people" as proof of fascism in the White House. It was built on an event that the Department of Justice now alleges was infiltrated and partially organized by a paid operative of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The DOJ indictment alleges that the SPLC paid an informant network that included a source identified only as "F-37" who was a member of the online leadership chat group that planned the 2017 Unite the Right event. This source attended the event at the direction of the SPLC, made racist postings under the supervision of the SPLC, and helped coordinate transportation to the event for several attendees. For this work, F-37 was allegedly paid over $270,000 by the SPLC in secret between 2015 and 2023. Sit with that number. A quarter of a million dollars, paid over eight years, to someone who helped put the most politically consequential racial spectacle of the Trump era on the map, while the SPLC publicly insisted that anyone who questioned the authenticity of the event was peddling dangerous conspiracy theories. The SPLC more than doubled its revenue in the months following the Charlottesville violence. In 2016, total public support and net assets topped $51 million. By October 2017, that figure had grown to $133 million, a surge driven in part by donations from George Clooney, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and JP Morgan Chase. The organization that allegedly funded an organizer of Charlottesville also collected the windfall from Charlottesville's aftermath. That is not a coincidence that deserves to be discussed only on conservative websites. That is a scandal of historic proportions
Continue next post.
I found out a long time ago that Trump was mis-represented on the "very fine people on both sides" remark concerning Charlottesville. He clearly had exempted Neo Nazis etc.
This is further evidence of how balanced and rational I am in this matter. Whereas you can never concede anything. You will defend even the most glaring atrocities and wrongs.
Nairaland General › Re: Is The Earth A Slaveyard by DeepSight(op): 7:51pm On Apr 28
